A third of Gatwick flights do not go over four days of fog
A THIRD of Aurigny’s Gatwick flights have not operated since Boxing Day.
It has been battling bad weather in the islands and in the UK to operate its schedules.
After a Christmas Eve where it operated several late flights across Britain to get people home for the holidays, Aurigny has since suffered disruption almost every day until yesterday, with several delays and cancellations on the island’s busiest air route to London.
Yesterday flights finally seemed to be returning to normal.
‘Aurigny has worked hard to minimise disruption from ongoing low visibility, operating over 20 flights from 24 December – including recovery services and additional ACMI support – to keep travellers moving and prevent prolonged displacement over multiple days,’ an airline spokeswoman said.
Between Boxing Day and Sunday, of the 29 flights to Gatwick, 10 were cancelled and many of the rest of the flights were heavily delayed due to fog at Guernsey and later around Gatwick, which was particularly badly affected on Sunday.
Saturday 28 December had always been set to be a busy day, with nearly all the original outbound flights already completely full on the route, before the airline was left to contend with five out of six flights on Friday being cancelled.
It lead the airline scheduling 10 flights on the route on Saturday – eight of which eventually operated.
As disruption continued on Sunday, and two Gatwick rotations were cancelled, Aurigny put on an extra flight from Southampton and coached the passengers from Gatwick to the south coast.
The hard work to get on top of the schedule appeared to have paid off, with seats available in both directions for Gatwick services.
As of mid-afternoon, all flights were operating on or very close to schedule.
While the fog may have lifted in the UK and in Guernsey, more bad weather is predicted tomorrow.
Winds from the south-west are set to start picking up this evening and are expected to peak at about gale force eight tomorrow lunchtime.
‘Aurigny is closely and continually monitoring the forecast for 1 January to assess the potential for any impact on our operations,’ the airline said.
‘Should the forecast worsen, we will advise customers of their options as appropriate.’
No Condor passenger ferries were scheduled to run on New Year’s Day, but there are both slow and fast ferry services planned for Thursday.
