Deputy Charles Parkinson said Aurigny was both an economic enabler and a commercial business.
‘Obviously at the moment Aurigny’s scope for taking decisions is severely constrained by travel restrictions.’
He said: ‘Of course we would all like Aurigny to put on more flights, but there is not much demand, meaning there is a limit to what they can realistically do’.
He had seen the exchanges on Twitter from parents and students’ concerned about limited flights to the UK in September when many young people on the island needed to travel to university next month.
‘If Aurigny continues to provide services to Southampton, the students can get a train – or several trains – to where they need to be, whether that’s Leeds or Manchester or somewhere else in the UK,’ he said.
‘It’s not impossible, but it would be more inconvenient.’
Although he did not know for sure, he suspected that it would be economically feasible to put on another flight to somewhere such as Leeds or Manchester for those students who needed to travel further north for university.
‘I trust that if there was sufficient demand for a particular route to get students to where they need to go, then Aurigny would be flexible – after all, they have been flexible in their response to the demand for Isle of Man and Alderney flights as more people have looked to travel there this summer,’ he said.
‘There’s a willingness to fly, but uncertainty as to whether it is economically viable to do so.’
When asked whether Economic Development would consider pumping some more money into Aurigny if necessary for additional flights, he said this issue has not been discussed by the committee because it was less of an issue that affected Guernsey’s economy as much as it was a social or educational issue.
He suspected it would have little support from Economic Development.
The committee is pressured to return unspent money back to the States.
‘We have been asked by Treasury to return as much of our budget as possible, we’ve already agreed to give back £250,000 to the centre and we are debating whether we can return any more out of our events budget.’
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