Jonathan Hinkles, also a former CEO of Loganair, said there were ‘credible’ options to save the airline, but these were not pursued as a consequence of island politics on Jersey’s part.
‘You see the minister for Sustainable Economic Development in Jersey [Kirsten Morel] saying airlines need scale, and scale provides resilience. Well a combined operation of Aurigny and Blue Islands would have had scale and resilience, but that was an option that for whatever reason they would not contemplate or even entertain.’
Mr Hinkles said he had been working with Blue Islands closely for about a year, and called the airline’s collapse ‘desperately sad’ for its staff.
The airline’s liquidation, announced yesterday, was an outcome a ‘very good and dedicated team of people did not deserve’.
‘And frankly, it shouldn’t have happened. There were options with Aurigny which were viable and practical but they were not pursued as a consequence of island politics very much from the Jersey side.
‘I think people who’ve been left unemployed as a consequence of this have every right to feel aggrieved and upset about the way that this has happened.’
He said that Loganair had changed ‘very significantly’ from his time at the helm, and he was interested to see how applications to run Southampton and Jersey services from Guernsey would be treated by the island’s Transport Licensing Authority.
He added the States of Jersey did not have the legislative ability to nominate lifeline routes, but suspected its financial support of Loganair would mean the airline would continue to operate there, regardless of the Guernsey position.
‘I’m sure Loganair’s presence in Jersey will be more assured. It’s been publicly reported in Jersey that the States of Jersey is financially supporting it, to what extent nobody knows but I imagine it would have to be a considerable level of support, because the costs and logistics of mobilising Loganair is not a cheap thing to do.’
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.