The Scottish airline was encouraged into Jersey by that island’s government after the collapse of Blue Islands, and it immediately tried to take over the airline’s Guernsey routes too.
Last week it was announced that the TLA was intending to deny Loganair a licence to operate the Guernsey-Jersey route and it responded by withdrawing its application.
Jersey deputy Jonathan Renouf said that Guernsey ‘holding the cards’ over inter-island air travel was not necessarily a bad thing, but is almost certainly not the outcome the Jersey government would have wished for.
‘It was a logical consequence of Jersey deciding not to talk to Guernsey at the time the Blue Islands’ crisis began. The possibility to work collaboratively was lost. What was missed was an opportunity to collaborate,’ he said.
Deputy Montfort Tadier, chair of the island’s Economic and International Affairs Scrutiny Panel, told the Jersey Evening Post that he was concerned Jersey and Guernsey governments did not appear to be working well together and there was increased fragmentation of inter-island connectivity.
‘It was clear to me and many others that Loganair would never be granted a licence to operate the routes between Guernsey and Jersey and Guernsey and Southampton,’ he said.
‘The immediate question is how this will affect the financial viability of Loganair’s operations to and from Jersey, given that these other potentially lucrative routes are no longer an option.’
Deputy Tadier said that time would tell whether it was a wise decision from the TLA to reject Loganair’s application.
‘From a Jersey perspective, I am certainly concerned that – once again – Jersey and Guernsey’s governments do not seem to be working together in the best interests of both islands,’ he said.
‘We have seen this already in terms of ferry travel, and the same may be happening with air routes.’
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