The total number of air passengers travelling between the UK and Guernsey last month was up by just 511 on May 2025 – an average increase of just 17 passengers a day. That is despite 7,633 travellers choosing to use the new, taxpayer-subsidised connection with Heathrow.
The big uptake of the Heathrow link was almost exactly mirrored by a large reduction in passengers flying between other UK airports and the island. In total, there were 7,122 fewer travellers between Guernsey and all of the mainland airports, other than Heathrow, during the month.
London City was the hardest hit, with passenger numbers more than halving from 4,330 in 2025 to just 2,060 this year. But all other southern UK airports seem to have been significantly impacted by the ‘Heathrow effect’.
Exeter is down by 44%, Bristol by 25% and Southampton by 10%.
At the end of last week, Guernsey’s Economic Development Committee put out a media statement heralding the success of the new Heathrow route. That statement suggested that the impact on other routes had not been particularly significant.
It cited passenger numbers on the Gatwick route as only being down by 3% on May in the previous year. That statement was correct, but now the full figures for air travel during the month have been published, it does appear that much of the business on the Heathrow link is actually ‘transfer trade’ from other airports.
Travel on routes between Guernsey and the north of England and Midlands appear to have been less severely impacted. Passenger numbers to and from Manchester are only down by 3%, while there were just 1% fewer on the route to Birmingham.
It is not publicly known exactly how much the new route to Heathrow is costing Guernsey taxpayers. It is understood that British Airways is enjoying a direct grant from the budget of the Economic Development Committee, as well as heavily discounted airport charges. But details have never been released because they are deemed to be ‘commercially sensitive’.
On top of the direct payments and concessions from the States, the island’s publicly owned airline, Aurigny, has previously said that it expects to take a big financial hit because of the loss of passengers to the new route.
The statement from Economic Development also claimed that, as a result of the new Heathrow route, the percentage of tourists among the passengers travelling through Guernsey’s airport had increased from 45% last May to 60% this May. If that statistic is correct, it means that the number of islanders flying anywhere during the month dropped by more than 10,000.
The only really good news contained in the latest figures, other than the success of Heathrow itself, is a healthy 16% growth in passengers on the Jersey route during the month. Aurigny’s link to Paris also continues to show steady increases in trade.