Aurigny’s newest leased aircraft arrives
It has been a busy week for local plane spotters, with Aurigny leasing a number of aircraft.
Two Avanti Air Q400 planes have been kept busy.
D-AASH has been operating Guernsey routes for more than week, and undertook a London Gatwick rotation yesterday, before heading to Stockholm in Sweden yesterday afternoon.
D-AASG arrived into Guernsey yesterday from Birmingham, having previously been operating in Germany. It did a mid-morning London Gatwick rotation before also heading off to Sweden.
Titan Airways Airbus A320 – G-POWM – has also become a regular sight on Guernsey’s runway. Yesterday it was operating Bristol, Dublin, Liverpool and Birmingham rotations.
Another leased plane arrived yesterday afternoon.
Luxwing Dash 8-400 arrived from Bari, Italy, yesterday afternoon. It is due to operate three London rotations today.
Most of Aurigny’s usual fleet also seems to have been running busy schedules.
The jet, G-NSEY, as well as two of the airline’s three ATRs – G-OATR and G-OGFC – seemed to be running as usual.
The third ATR, G-ORAI, has been out of action since mid-February, and was last recorded flying to Dinard for maintenance.
It has been noted that a global shortage of spare aircraft parts has been impacting maintenance timelines.
A letter was sent by Aurigny CEO Nico Bezuidenhout to Economic Development president Neil Inder last month, which was later shared with the States members, detailing how the airline was ensuring routes were covered.
A previous agreement with Eastern Airways to provide standby capacity was terminated after the other airline failed to deliver.
This led to the ‘wet leasing’ from Italian carrier Avanti Air, which is due to continue until the end of April.
The use of Aurigny’s jet is being wound down this month and is set to leave service by the end of April.
To replace the jet, Aurigny is set to lease two ATRs – one from the end of May and second aircraft from August. They are set to be delivered with newly overhauled engines and landing gears, as well as new seats and refreshed interiors.
The exterior livery is set to be applied once they have entered service.
