Costly Aurigny needs clear direction

But it is also costly and lacking in clear direction for its ultimate role.

The airline is expected to record losses of some £20m. for 2020, but underpinning the Covid-ravaged finances there were already fundamental problems dragging it down from the notional goal of breaking even. In 2019 there was a £10m. loss, in years preceding that these were running at around £5m. The public purse is regularly drawn upon to recapitalise the airline.

The question of what to do with Aurigny, or indeed air links in general, was never brought to any satisfactory conclusion last term.

This time around, we have seen Policy & Resources come near to finalising a £2m. a year subsidy for it to fly a reduced Alderney service. That was announced at the end of December but details are still being finalised. Aurigny has trimmed its staff numbers and will continue to do so as its fleet changes and older planes are taken out of service.

The airline has spoken of plans for relaunching air links as borders open, including through tickets with big airlines and the possibility of new links to the north of the UK next season.

There is a huge pent up demand for islanders to travel, to reunite with family and friends, and for the business community to reconnect directly with the outside world. But the lack of a clearly defined strategy ahead of this reopening is a concern.

Everyone needs to know whether P&R and the States as a whole sees the airline as a loss-making economic enabler, and if so to what extent, or whether it wants to encourage competition, including through a large investment in a runway extension or route subsidies.

A survey hopes to find out what the business community desires, but the loss-making experiments with London City show how cautiously this all needs to be addressed.

The security and flexibility offered by owning an airline needs to be exploited, but that can happen fully only with a more focused understanding of what the States wants.