Football, padel and hockey all fell foul of the unexpected collapse of the airline on Friday night, as a slew of fixtures were called off at the last minute, including the Under-21 football Muratti and a veterans hockey inter-insular.
Guernsey Hockey ladies’ director Ali Le Tocq said the airline’s demise had cost the sport more than £5,000.
‘We had a ladies’ veterans inter-insular in Jersey on Saturday and obviously we weren’t able to go,’ she said. ‘We also had the senior inter-insular booked for March. That was 90 seats and Blue Islands were laying on an extra plane. Luckily we have only paid a deposit on that.’
Mrs Le Tocq said she had spent much of Monday morning on the phone to insurers.
‘Unfortunately because it’s the collapse of a company we are not covered,’ she said. ‘All in all we are looking at losing £5,500.’
She added that inter-island hockey fixtures had already reduced in recent years with the fall in the number of sailings between the islands.
‘We are a winter sport so the limited boat service means the number of fixtures has dropped,’ she said. ‘As long as there are regular flights we should be OK. For us the barrier is cost. We don’t have national bodies subsidising us.
‘Hopefully Aurigny will take over and we will see a price reduction. We have a really good relationship with them and they always do their best to accommodate us, even at short notice.’
Padel was another sport affected with the cancellation of a junior inter-island tournament in Guernsey.
Guernsey Padel committee member Sara Woolland said tennis and padel would be particularly hard hit, as they not only competed against Jersey but also alongside them.
‘That connection is really important for tennis and padel as our county is the Channel Islands, so we play in teams together,’ she said. ‘Just this weekend there were players from both islands playing together in UK Padel County Championships. We need to be playing together and against each other to make those team selections, and to allow players to practise together, especially for padel, as its really a doubles-only sport.’
Sixteen competitors from Jersey had been due early on Saturday morning, and alternative flights emerged too late while the padel club explored other options.
‘We looked at boats instead, basically anything that floats, but Jersey’s tides were all wrong too. Everyone was so excited to play it was such a shame. The Jersey competitors had originally looked at coming by boat, but we have already had two previous attempts at holding the tournament cancelled so they said “no, we will fly to make sure it goes ahead”.’
Mrs Woolland said despite the disappointment of the weekend she hoped some change for the good may come out of Blue Islands' collapse.
‘It will have a massive impact going forward on all sports. We are just going to have to sit tight and see what happens,’ she said. ‘But they were expensive, I generally find Aurigny around 10% cheaper, and the weekend schedule was appalling. There were no early Saturday flights with an evening return. That often meant the added cost of staying overnight. Islands Unlimited have been great but you are at the behest of the state of the sea.
‘Going forward it would be great if Aurigny and Loganair spoke to sports and got an idea of our schedules and took that into consideration, which are known well in advance, especially for big events such as the Siam Cup and the Muratti.’
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