Jonathan Hinkles, managing director of the Isles of Scilly operator, pictured, spoke live in an interview on Alderney-based Riduna Radio yesterday, addressing some of the claims made following the announcement of prolonged service disruption this week due to the unavailability of Skybus pilots.
‘There’s no truth to either of them,’ he said. ‘It’s a function of the Alderney rumour mill which isn’t true and isn’t helpful. I was hearing rumours over the weekend of a pilot strike. That’s completely not true, the pilot who looks after union affairs said it was news to him.
‘Rumours are a distraction from what we should all be doing, which is focusing on resilience and weather issues and delivering a robust service for the people of Alderney.’
Mr Hinkles said that repeated references in the island to Twin Otters being stationed in Alderney was a misunderstanding of an article published in Aurigny’s in-flight magazine En Voyage.
‘At no time in discussions that I’ve been party to, have we said we will permanently station an aircraft overnight in Alderney,’ said Mr Hinkles. But he said that if Aurigny wanted to do so, Skybus could support it.
‘At present, the schedule starts its working day in Guernsey and finishes in Guernsey, exactly as it did with the Dorniers, and there’s no plan to change that which I am aware of.’
Mr Hinkles said that he had told the island’s Policy & Finance Committee that he would be keen to return to landing on one of the grass runways at the airport. He said he thought it would improve the service when crosswinds were a factor.
‘Putting one of the grass runways back into commission and using that for commercial air transport will give pilots another option when the weather is particularly gusty.’
Mr Hinkles said he understood why Alderney residents were upset, but still firmly believes that the Skybus-Aurigny partnership was ‘the right answer’ for the island’s air services in the long term.
He said the single biggest ‘bump in the road’ in recent months had been the weather.
‘Weather happens, it’s an island community, everybody understands that, and this winter has been worse than most, but when the weather clears and we’re able to fly again, we’re trying to restore service resilience and get people on the move more quickly once the weather allows,’ he said.
‘It’s been the same in Land’s End so far this year, we’ve lost flying because of strong winds, repetitive low visibility and conditions that do not enable us to fly.’
He disagreed with a claim that Skybus was rushed into taking over from the Dorniers and did not have enough time to prepare. He said that unforeseen issues had included delays in pilot training programmes and the time taken to certify the aircraft due to new technology.
‘To everybody whose journey has been disrupted, I’m terribly sorry, I do apologise most sincerely. We are doing our best to make sure that the robust services are in place that the community rightly expects of Skybus and Aurigny.’