Plan to use ATRs on Alderney routes ‘dead in the water’
Alderney has been told to forget about larger ATR aircraft operating from its airport.
A project to repair and extend its crumbling runway and redevelop its terminal building looks set to be abandoned after costs spiralled from £24m. to £37m.
The longer runway was proposed partly to allow Aurigny to land ATR aircraft in Alderney, rather than smaller Dornier aircraft, but States' Trading Supervisory Board president Peter Roffey told the States that plan was now ‘dead in the water’ and an alternative approach would be needed.
‘The sum for the runway we wanted to build came in far too high and there is no prospect of getting it down to an acceptable level,’ said Deputy Roffey.
‘Now we are pricing up more modest options which will involve smaller aircraft.’
The extension and redevelopment project was approved by the States in December 2022.
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Policy & Resources president Lyndon Trott consistently opposed the project and believed it would prove too expensive.
‘The option approved by the Assembly was both unaffordable and undeliverable the landing of ATRs on Alderney runway will not be realised,’ said Deputy Trott yesterday.
Deputy Roffey said he regretted that the final tender for the project was 50% higher than the budget approved by the States.
He believed that extending the runway and redeveloping airport facilities would have saved the States money by reducing the annual £2m. subsidy required for Alderney’s air links, and made those links more resilient.
Deputy Roffey also rejected fears raised by Alderney representative Steve Roberts that working up a revised scheme for the island’s runway could delay any works for another two years.
‘It will be a question of weeks before the final detailed plan can be put out,’ he said.
‘Over the next 12 weeks, we hope to finalise some costs and provide them to P&R, and then I guess a policy letter will come back to the States.’
Repairs to Alderney’s runway are already years overdue after the States scrapped a more modest scheme approved by the previous Assembly to refurbish and widen the surface at an estimated cost of £12m.
Deputy Roffey said the smaller scheme now being developed would not necessarily be the one approved by the previous Assembly in 2018.
He also continued to back Aurigny’s plan to simplify its fleet around ATR aircraft as ‘a very obvious no-brainer’, despite accepting that alternative aircraft would continue to be needed to service routes in and out of Alderney.
In reply to a question from Deputy Trott, Deputy Roffey provided reassurances that the STSB regularly encouraged Aurigny to improve communications and believed it was having some success.
In the wake of the news, Alderney president William Tate said islanders had a range of views about which aircraft were best suited for the island. But they all agreed that urgent action was needed to improve the airport.
