‘Guernsey is quite lucky to have Aurigny’

‘GUERNSEY is quite lucky to have Aurigny’, UK aviation consultant Louise Congdon told an audience of local business leaders yesterday.

Managing partner of York Aviation Louise Congdon at the IoD breakfast at OGH focusing on Guernsey's air connections. (Picture by Sophie Rabey, 33633435)

She said that compared to the Isle of Man and Jersey, she believed Guernsey had better connectivity, and that the other islands had been damaged rather than enhanced by low cost carriers.

‘Other airlines are motivated entirely by profit,’ she said.

‘They won’t operate a route if it’s not profitable... but you have an airline whose sole purpose in life is providing the connectivity you need.’

Ms Congdon, managing partner of York Aviation, which has worked with Guernsey Ports for several years, said that she had come to this conclusion after looking at the connectivity provided by Aurigny compared to airlines operating out of similar airports.

She told an Institute of Directors’ breakfast seminar that Jersey and the Isle of Man had fairly static markets but worse connectivity, and that was due to low fare carriers.

‘The truth is the entry of easyJet into those markets, while it has created a slightly lower fare dynamic, hasn’t really grown the market at all.’

She said that post-Covid, Guernsey’s air travel was doing well by comparison to other regional airports.

While on average these were operating with passenger numbers at about 33% below pre-pandemic levels, for the year ending in July this year, Guernsey’s passenger numbers were down 26.5%.

Also on the panel for the event were under-pressure Aurigny CEO Nico Bezuidenhout and States’ Trading Supervisory Board president Peter Roffey.

Mr Bezuidenhout agreed that connectivity on and off the island had more than doubled since the pandemic, and aviation recovery had been as strong if not stronger than elsewhere, while he once again apologised for Aurigny’s ongoing issues with disruption.

He described 2024 as ‘a misery’.

Major issues which had hit the airline had been out of its control, he said.

‘This year on 106 days we were impacted by three technical events.

‘When you’re a small-scale business and that comes across your path it disrupts services considerably.

‘I regret it and apologise but I don’t believe we could have done anything differently.’

The event took questions from the floor but only through an app, meaning they were moderated before reaching the panel, which led to some criticism post-event.