Fog puts flyers’ festivities on hold for dramatic few hours

The final flight of the day got in at a minute past midnight on Christmas Day after efforts were made not only to keep Guernsey Airport open late but to encourage destination airports to also accept late flights.

The island was shrouded by fog throughout the day and the Flight Radar website saw checks on Guernsey flights exceeded only by demand to track Santa Claus.

In the end both Aurigny and Blue Islands were unable to get every flight away – Blue Islands cancelled an inter-island service and Aurigny its Alderney services and its last run to Gatwick – but combining other services saw most people get where they wanted to be, irrespective of the time of arrival.

Barely anything had moved all day at the airport until the cloud broke at about 6pm. With aircraft holding overhead at that point, within minutes flights had touched down, some of them having already tried once and returned to the UK in frustration.

The same thing happened again around 8pm when another couple of flights arrived and then, after some tense holding above, the clouds parted after 11pm to allow the final flights of the day to arrive.

The last flight in, from Bristol, had been delayed from Monday, with some passengers moved from Exeter to Bristol before waiting all day to get away on the Tuesday. After two aborted attempts to land, the plane finally touched down to what passenger Richard Harding, the former Island FM presenter, described as ‘lots of cheering’.

Passengers expressed a mix of frustration and gratitude to finally make it into the island.

Alice Shelby, who was travelling home from Southampton, had her flight delayed by seven hours. Her flight had already been rearranged because of a cancellation at the weekend due to high winds.

‘It has been horrendous,’ she said. ‘I think it’s ridiculous that in this modern world we can’t find a way to get home with fog.’

Multiple flights had circled the island during the day, waiting for an opportunity to land.

Colin Marks was on one of the flights that was holding overhead for more than an hour. He was travelling from Southampton on a flight operated by Blue Islands and said it had been a long day.

‘Blue Islands kept altering the information but didn’t keep us updated,’ he said.

His daughter had been up to the airport multiple times on Christmas Eve to pick him up but found out every time she went that his flight was delayed further.

Also travelling to the island from Southampton, Jackie Statham and her husband were visiting the island for Christmas, having been here on holiday for the first time 30 years earlier.

‘It’s been a frustrating day,’ she said. ‘The pilots did very well and the crew were wonderful.’

Aurigny, which brought in an extra aircraft for the Christmas period, also called in the support of Exeter and Southampton airports to extend opening hours to give the airline more time for weather to improve. The forecast had indicated that visibility, described as ‘atrocious’ by one pilot, would improve to allow landing after 4pm.

‘We know the weather has been especially frustrating for our customers today, on Christmas Eve, with foggy conditions persisting,’ said an Aurigny spokesman in a statement released on Tuesday afternoon.

‘Our team are resolutely focused on getting everyone where they want to be safely.’

‘We’d like to extend a special thanks to our airport partners, including Guernsey Airport, for their support in extending operating hours this evening – we are all united in our efforts to get people home this Christmas.’

• Weather is again poor for flying today. Although the early-morning flights departed, arrivals were immediately held up by thick cloud.