One in 11 Alderney flights in 2023 were cancelled
A freedom of information response has revealed one in 11 Alderney flights were cancelled last year, while a further one in 14 flights were delayed.
The statistics reveal the challenges of reliable travel to the island.
Of the 4,286 flights to and from the northern island’s airport, 303 were cancelled due to adverse weather conditions and 82 due to maintenance and crew-related issues.
A further 309 flights were delayed due to adverse weather conditions.
This means that, overall, more than 16% of all flights did not run on time.
An Aurigny spokesman said that the maintenance and crew-related issues on the Dornier aircraft which fly the route accounted for 1.9% of the 4,286 scheduled flights.
‘During the same period, the cancellation rate of ATRs across our network was 0.8%, indicating that ATR aircraft would provide a higher reliability level if they could operate into Alderney,’ he said
‘If the ATR cancellation rate had been applied to the scheduled Dornier flights, there would have only been 34 cancellations, which means 48 more flights could have been completed.’
The spokeswoman said the airline would welcome any improvements made to Alderney Airport that would allow ATR aircraft to land at the destination.
Final costings for a proposed £24m. project to extend Alderney runway and overhaul the airport are currently with Guernsey’s civil service before being brought back for consideration by the States later this year.
The runway extension would allow Aurigny to land the 72-seater ATR aircraft on the island, instead of the 19-seater Dornier, allowing the airline to make savings by rationalising its fleet.
The comments come as weather saw half of the flights between Guernsey and Alderney cancelled yesterday due to fog.
