Rocky start to Aurigny’s half-term flights

The colleges broke up yesterday and the States schools finish today before a week off.

Many routes were filled to capacity yesterday and today is set to be even busier.

But flights were not going smoothly yesterday. The airline had all five of its ATR planes operating earlier this week – an unusual occurrence. But G-OGFC was grounded in Guernsey yesterday, and G-OATR had been on the ground since Tuesday before returning to action last night.

But on a busy day, there was little room to have aircraft out of action.

An Aurigny spokeswoman thanked customers for their patience.

‘Our team worked hard through the night to ensure our customers faced minimal delays, quickly securing additional capacity from a wet-lease provider, which operated some flights this morning on our behalf,’ she said.

‘All affected customers have been contacted to inform them of changes to their flight times.’

Aurigny leased Titan Airways G-POWK to help out, but as the plane was based at Gatwick and Aurigny rotations start from Guernsey, there were delays.

The plane first operated the 8.35am from Gatwick to Guernsey, but it took off from London two hours late. Only then did it pick up the 7am passengers heading to Gatwick, meaning it left Guernsey at about noon.

G-PBOT, G-PEMB and G-ORAI were all busy flying yesterday.

Apart from a couple of spare seats on a morning Gatwick service, all London flights from Guernsey were sold out yesterday. Similarly today eight of the nine London flights were sold out, with the ninth having only one seat available.

There is currently no availability of flights to London tomorrow.