Travel situation 'ridiculous'

As an example, I travelled to Gatwick at the beginning of April, having booked the flight six days in advance. The cost was £282, dreadfully expensive for any short flight to the UK but thankfully paid for by my employer, and admittedly semi-justifiable because of the lateness of the booking (this kind of price is not unusual when booking a week or so in advance). Imagine my surprise therefore when on the flight out the plane was half-full and on the way back it was a quarter-full.

I can understand the rationale for raising the price of a flight close to the date of travel when the plane is nearly full, but when it is not even half-full this is commercial insanity that is also damaging the interests of our island. The imperative to rectify this situation is made even more imperative by the public ownership of Aurigny. Aurigny needs to follow the marginal pricing model pioneered by the low-cost airlines whereby prices rise in line with demand, and not before. Surely, when you are in public ownership and the lifeblood of an economy, it is better to have 100 seats full at £100 than 50 seats at £200?

Of course we need to consider the issue of public ownership and the States' objectives for Aurigny. Public ownership of Aurigny allows the States of Guernsey to subsidise the lifeline Aurigny route, but this may be damaging the wider community if the benefits to Alderney are outweighed by the costs to Guernsey of more expensive travel. One can see the merits of public ownership, but the original case of protecting the Gatwick route is being overtaken by the inefficiency of Aurigny.

Indeed, if this cross-subsidisation, along with the high ticket prices and poor availability it may be contributing to, were taking place in the private sector we would screaming for regulation or some other legal remedy, or even competition. Aurigny is behaving like the archetypal monopoly and the current situation is a market failure.

How many businesses have been discouraged from coming to the island? How many visitors? How many islanders are being prevented from taking leisure and business trips off the island? It's a self-perpetuating downward spiral and will inevitably take its toll.

There needs to be some stronger, independent oversight of Aurigny. The Alderney route should be split out and subsidised as a matter of policy, if that is the will of the States. The remainder of the business should be run under normal, rational commercial principles, subject to scrutiny, or a policy of break-even should be explicitly stated and the implications understood. Or perhaps we should even be exploring the case for the sale of Aurigny and the introduction of competition again, subject to the protection of the Gatwick route.

RICHARD HEMANS,

Address withheld.

Editor's footnote: Euan Mahy, Media Relations Manager for Aurigny replies:

In some respects your correspondent's final paragraph is correct. Aurigny is owned by the States of Guernsey and takes its direction from them. Currently, we are mandated to break even, something that we will achieve with the exception of the Alderney routes.

Regarding flight prices and passenger loads, our pricing model is common across the industry and our average load factors are good, given we're a small regional airline. But, off season and off peak, there are times when our flights are hitting our average load factors. We are open to direction on pricing from our shareholder, but changing our current model would, we feel, pre-suppose a subsidy, something the States isn't currently minded to provide. We have regular meetings with the head of department who oversees the day-to-day running of the airline within the States. Equally, we have a number of agreed Key Performance Indicators regarding price and service reliability, which we meet. The States has increased oversight of its 'commercial' entities, including Aurigny, by appointing Deputy Dave Jones as president of the States' Trading Supervisory Board and we look forward to working with him.

Aurigny provides the people of Guernsey with direct links to a number of key UK airports and at the end of May we added Leeds Bradford to that list. For an island with a population of 63,000, eight year-round services affords islanders impressive connectivity. We protect and operate the Gatwick routes for the people of Guernsey by flying to that airport six times a day on weekdays and five at weekends. We began our London City service at the request of Guernsey Finance to get business people into the city from Guernsey (or vice versa) as quickly as possible. Equally, we directly bolster Guernsey's economy because, as a locally-based employer, we pay circa £2m. in tax and social security contributions and circa £5m. in charges to enable us to operate from Guernsey and Alderney airports.