Deputies urged to get behind Aurigny's senior management

Chairman Kevin George and chief executive Nico Bezuidenhout are meeting deputies this week under growing pressure following months of flight disruption and poor customer service.

Some deputies are speculating about the future of the airline’s board and senior management.

And Economic Development has discussed a replacing the States’ Trading Supervisory Board as the airline’s shareholder on behalf of the States.

But STSB president Peter Roffey has claimed ‘the worst of the disruption is now behind us’ and urged politicians and islanders to back the leadership of the airline.

‘I believe it would be profoundly contrary to the interests of Guernsey as a community, and to the travelling public, to remove the chairman of Aurigny or to ask the company’s board to remove its chief executive,’ said Deputy Roffey.

‘Both are very able individuals with a clearly articulated plan for a return to normality.

‘Changing horses at this stage would seriously risk making the situation far worse.

‘It may butter no parsnips with the public that our airline has been hit by an almost unbelievable perfect storm of events, but the STSB has to be objective.

‘That requires us to tell Aurigny they must do much better and pronto, but it also requires us to consider whether the current management are best placed to achieve this, and I have no doubt that they are.’

Thousands of passengers’ flights have been delayed, cancelled or sent to airports miles away from their destination as Aurigny has struggled to lease enough aircraft to maintain its extensive route network.

The airline’s mishaps so far this year have included a leasing company failing to provide cover it had guaranteed, the grounding of the Embraer jet with corrosion, a plane being badly damaged when a landing went wrong, the grounding of a plane after it left the runway in Guernsey, and a global shortage of aircraft parts.

Mr Bezuidenhout announced a recovery plan two weeks ago.

‘I feel the airline has responded and that things have improved considerably since their nadir,’ said Deputy Roffey.

‘The sensible decision was taken to trim the schedule in the short term in ways which caused the least possible disruption for travellers and extra wet-lease capacity has been sourced until Aurigny’s permanent fleet returns to full strength.’

The airline’s troubles continued last weekend as passengers were left stranded without assistance after the late cancellation of an evening flight from Gatwick at the end of half term.

‘That was extremely regrettable,’ said Deputy Roffey.

‘I will be asking Aurigny to explain the cause of that incident and what contingencies they have to avoid any repeat.

That said, there will never be a service which offers a 100% guarantee of no cancellations.’

The STSB signed off changes to Aurigny’s fleet of aircraft, which it has since accepted left the airline without the resilience necessary to respond to recent mishaps.

But that has not shaken the board’s confidence in Mr George or Mr Bezuidenhout.

‘The outcome, once complete, will be a significant improvement in the financial and operational efficiency of the airline,’ said Deputy Roffey.

‘It should be remembered that the current regime has transformed the financial performance of Aurigny, something made doubly difficult by the lingering impact on air travel of the pandemic.

‘Part of that process of stemming the historic losses the airline has suffered was always going to be the savings delivered by a simplified fleet.’