With local hotels fully booked and Guernsey Airport’s emergency accommodation plan activated, about 70 passengers were put up in Styx Community Centre.
BA crew members were stranded as well, and also had to fulfil their 10-12 consecutive hours of rest before flying again.
‘My concern was that if they weren’t rested then we would have a whole plane load of passengers in the same situation the following day,’ said Visit Guernsey lead marketing officer Zoe Gosling.
‘As part of our ring round, we knew there was space in Herm, and so between us and Kate in Herm we managed to charter a boat.’
There was a 20-minute window to get the crew down to the harbour, and suddenly they were on their way to Herm for a night.
‘The feedback from the BA crew was that they were very happy to have somewhere to stay and loved being whisked over to our little island by boat at dusk,’ said Herm marketing manager Kate Moody.
‘Only one of them had ever visited Herm before, so it was lovely to hear how much they enjoyed their stay.
‘They also visited The Herm Shop the following morning and bought a few items to take home with them.’
The emergency accommodation plan dictates how to accommodate people in the event of an emergency or major incident.
There are a number of rest centres around the island or when there is no other possible accommodation available.
‘Our first call is always hotel or guest house accommodation,’ said emergency planning officer Kevin Murphy.
‘We get an enormous amount of help from Visit Guernsey, but in this instance there was just no accommodation at all, which meant we had to open a rest centre, which essentially is a big dormitory.
‘We do the best to accommodate people as best we can, but it’s not always easy.’
There is sleeping accommodation for males in one area, females in another and some breakout rooms for families.
All of the plans are scalable depending on the number of people needing a bed.
When the air traffic control problems hit, there was an airport of around 500 people, which was whittled down to about 70 people.
Anyone who can go home or to family or friends’ homes will do so.
Visit Guernsey is now also involved with the emergency accommodation plan.
‘The reason we got involved is that there was a situation a couple of years ago where some passengers were left to sleep at the airport, and because we’re in constant communication with the accommodation providers we could have found them somewhere but we weren’t in the loop,’ said Ms Gosling.
‘From then, we all started working together.
‘We knew straight away with this one that we were full because we had the air display and couldn’t find a room anywhere for someone else.’
Mr Murphy said everyone tried their hardest to find alternative accommodation for the displaced passengers, but ultimately people needed to be moved out of the airport.
‘We had a whole load of partner agencies who helped us out, for example Island Coachways put on transport for us at very short notice,’ said Mr Murphy.
‘Styx opened up for us at short notice, Guernsey Civil Protection took all of the stuff we needed from the central store and got it all set up.
‘It’s a well-known and practised way of doing it. We get rooms set up for everything. We provided overnight security just in case anything went wrong, Principal Security helped us out at short notice.’
Island Coachways put on three different coach trips the following morning, at 5.15am, 8.30am and 9am.
A store based centrally in the island has more than 200 sleeping bags, air mattresses and air pillows for emergency situations in Guernsey.
After they have been used, they are washed in the laundrette at the hospital.
There is also a stock of hygiene kits for items such as toothbrushes.
‘We store a whole load of stuff because we know this is a situation that could very likely happen, and we store that centrally because we don’t know which rest centres will open,’ said Mr Murphy.
‘With food, both times we visited the airport, the cafe was left open and people were able to get some hot food from there.
‘In previous times we have opened restaurants and had local volunteers supply soup and bread rolls. Breakfast is easy to sort out. We’ll go out and get breakfast when shops open at 7am, and in this instance provided a whole load of stuff and teas and coffees. We look after everyone as best we can.’
Sometimes there are vulnerable people who are not suited to a rest centre.
On this occasion, Health & Social Care assisted in arranging alternative accommodation.