Flight disruption during week set to spill into the weekend

The latest round of poor visibility came on Thursday, when 15 of the 26 flights that day were cancelled. Those that did get through still faced long waits, with the 12.25pm from Gatwick not touching down until just before 9.30pm. Several flights diverted to Jersey, before trying to make dashes over to Guernsey when weather windows appeared.

While the fog cleared today, the scale of the disruption has spilled over into the weekend.

‘We have endeavoured to ensure that as many customers reach their final destinations, while ensuring as many of our aircraft have returned to Guernsey tonight [Thursday] to minimise disruption to our flights today,’ the airline said on its website.

‘All but one of our aircraft have been able to return to Guernsey successfully.’

With it being the first full week of the summer holidays, the airline has been busy and rebooking passengers has not been easy.

Passengers due to fly into Guernsey from Manchester on Thursday were reporting being rebooked on to Saturday evening services from Manchester or Saturday morning services from Liverpool.

Meanwhile a Southampton passenger due to travel on Thursday reported that they were not offered an alternative flight from the Hampshire airport to Guernsey until Sunday.

All flights from Manchester this morning were listed as sold out until Saturday night, while Southampton was listed as sold out until Saturday lunchtime. All services from Gatwick today were said to be sold out except the last flight, while no flights are listed as being available tomorrow.

An Aurigny spokeswoman thanked everyone for their patience during the bad weather.

‘Boat transportation was arranged for many of our inter-island affected customers earlier in the day,’ she said today.

‘Whenever we realised a journey was no longer possible, decisions were made proactively to cancel flights and re-accommodate customers onto other flights.

'In some cases, this meant arranging ad hoc double rotations, deploying the Dornier, or return flights not being available until the weekend because earlier seats were not available from preferred or alternative airports.’

While the planes were getting back on track today, one of the aircraft had been unable to get back on Thursday night, with LYJUP stuck in Southampton.

That had a knock-on effect for flights today, with the 9.35am flight to Gatwick not departing until 2.20pm.

• Guernsey Met Office said there was no more fog forecast for a least the next four days. It added that it was not unusual to see fog in Guernsey at any time of year, even in the summer.