Alderney let down by Aurigny's 'shoestring' service

We have a marvellous health service in Guernsey, and we are very well looked after, yet what good is that if you cannot get there?

We have a core of visitors that come year after year. Once we start to lose that it will take a generation to rebuild the trust of our links again.

Passengers on a recent weekend (22-23 August) suffered disruption of the most severe level. Some who were interviewed said they had visited for the first time. They said it was a beautiful island but they would never return because of Aurigny.

The staff were marvellous so that hasn't changed over the years, it's the only asset Aurigny have left.

Four Dorniers or five Trislanders are the very minimum needed to service Alderney, ask the previous Aurigny directorship.

Operations, reservations, ground crew, they are all under extreme pressure, and doing their level best. Unfortunately, they are also really badly let down by the current management.

Just one aircraft to service Alderney on the third week of August is beyond a joke. It's time Aurigny were more closely monitored, It is also time for change.

The reservations department used to host a town office at the bottom of Victoria Street. That was closed and reduced to have a single person providing ticket sales on the desk. They got rid of that person to have an outlet ticket sale in reservations itself. That, too, was closed.

Currently over the weekend, reservations consists of one solitary operator, handling ticket sales, urgent calls and complaints, and you cannot get through.

My point of this is: it is further evidence of the stripping down of service over the years. It is all run on a shoestring, including the essential aircraft placement.

You cannot run a flight service without enough aircraft.

Put all that loss of service, together with a premium charge of £274 return to Southampton, £124 return to Guernsey, is it any wonder that our economy spirals ever downward?

Those charges are a desperate clawing back of income, to fund buying jets for Guernsey. The public in Alderney is paying for those very jets that can never even land here.

The 24th of August was one of the worst days at Alderney Airport in living memory.

Surgeons missed operations. People missed work commitments. People missed transit to the US and Europe. People missed urgent medical treatment. Absolute chaos. And yet not one word of apology from Mark Darby or Mr. Moulton for this shambles.

On the basis of all this depletion of service of the last few years, and what they have done to ruin Alderney's economy, I call on Aurigny's management to resign.

STEVE ROBERTS

Editor's footnote: Mark Darby, CEO of Aurigny replies: Thank you for allowing me to reply to this letter because it is inaccurate in all almost every respect. I apologised on BBC Radio Guernsey on 27 August for the delays and inconvenience caused to our passengers in Alderney, Guernsey and Southampton on Sunday 23 and Monday 24 August, but will do so again here. I have already thanked our staff and crews for their efforts both generally, and specifically, on those two days.

Despite technical issues, we continued our flying schedule as best we could. We relied on one aircraft for the latter part of Sunday until Monday afternoon when two aircraft were back in service. Poor weather affects far more of our Alderney services than technical issues at a ratio of 4:1. For the months of July, up to an including 24 August, out of the 1,500 services we flew to Alderney, just 20 were cancelled because of technical problems.

Aurigny is a commercially operated, state-owned airline because it holds the London Gatwick slots on behalf of Guernsey. We operate lifeline links to that airport and to Alderney with a year-round frequency that would never be matched by a private operator. I don't consider three flights to and from Southampton a day and five to Guernsey to be a starvation diet for the people of Alderney. Our services to that island lose us £900,000 a year or, put another way, that's a subsidy for every Alderney resident of around £500. No one else in the Bailiwick enjoys that privilege. Running a year round, high frequency service at a loss is not 'stripping it down'. Similarly, how can a loss-making service pay for our Embraer jet, singular by the way, we have only one? Revenue from ticket sales isn't divided up per sector, it goes into a single pot.

By January 2016 we aim to be operating three Dorniers on the Alderney routes, one of which will be a new one and this is sufficient for most eventualities. Our shareholder must decide, if we can put a business case together, whether it is prepared to pay for a second new Dornier.

Our staff in Alderney are hard-working and loyal and I, and the rest of the company, value that. Our reservations and operations departments are based there and we employ a total of 26 staff. That means jobs for locals and tax for Guernsey. Finally, ticket sales are still carried out at Ayline House, by appointment.