The long and the short of it: a runway extension isn't a solution to the problem

Indeed one would have to question the sanity of those in the States who approved the outright purchase of a new jet using taxpayers' money. A small airline such as Aurigny normally would have no option but to either dry or wet lease an aircraft. Instead the States committed to a massive capital cost (£30m.) for an aircraft that is incapable of taking off from Guernsey at its Maximum Take-Off Weight.

Move on to today and the claim that we need a longer runway to accommodate larger aircraft to bring and despatch the huge numbers of travellers who are apparently queuing up to travel to and from an island with a population of circa 60,000, which, it was pointed out not long ago, is about the same number who go to watch Man Utd on a Saturday. A population which at the last count is going down, not up.

Hurrah for the letter in Monday 5 June's Press, 'Market crucial to air services, not runway size'.

Just as the States wasted its... sorry... our money on buying a new jet, it now wants to waste even more on extending a runway which, with no evidence to the contrary, seems perfectly adequate for the market it serves. Aurigny, Blue Islands and Flybe seem perfectly happy with it and have stated so.

As with 5 June's letter, we, the undersigned, have seen no substantive evidence that the proposal to extend will bring any economic or other benefit to the island. We have heard all sorts of, flimsily at best and at worst, downright misleading, claims about the need for the extension but not one solitary fact.

For example, here is an extract from the Press in February: 'Guernsey's runway could be long enough to accommodate larger planes by 2020, and could even be longer than Jersey's, if the States was to throw its support behind a lengthening project, Jan Kuttelwascher has said. The comments follow news that Guernsey has lost its summer Air Berlin services to Dusseldorf and Stuttgart, because the operator has moved to using larger Airbus aircraft.' A conclusion seemingly arrived at by Deputy Kuttelwascher based upon the claim that the reason Air Berlin pulled out of Guernsey was because it was changing to larger Airbus aircraft, which by inference would not be able to land at Guernsey.

Now, let us look at the facts rather than the fiction. Air Berlin is the second largest German airline, second only to Lufthansa. In the last six years it has lost €2.7bn... yes billion... The only reason Air Berlin continues to operate is because Etihad has a 29% stake in it and has so far pumped a staggering €1.6bn into it and in May this year agreed a further €350m. As part of this commitment, the company has produced a restructuring plan which began being implemented at the end of last year centred on the reduction of its routes from 387 down to less than 100, wet leasing 40 of its aircraft to Lufthansa and transferring 35 to NIKI which will operate them, subject to regulatory approval, in partnership with TUI and Etihad, leaving the airline with just half of its original fleet, all of which are Airbus aircraft serving only internal routes within

Germany to major European destinations and long-haul destinations.

If Mr Kuttelwascher wants to attract them back, he may need a runway slightly longer than 1,720m. and a terminal building somewhat larger to accommodate all the passengers that supposedly will be arriving in their droves. At that point, no doubt, Deputy Mary Lowe will be so concerned about population growth that she will want to introduce measures to stop them coming. We certainly will not have the hospitality employees or facilities to support an expansion in tourism. So it looks like we were not the only ones to lose a service from Air Berlin; we were just one of 280-odd other routes being chopped.

Of course, you can still fly to Dusseldorf with Flybe from Jersey. It is just that we don't promote that, or any other route via Jersey, as a viable link – but why not?

We further note that when Aurigny themselves questioned the need for a longer runway last month, Deputy Kuttelwascher referred specifically to extending the runway to allow Airbus 319 and Boeing 737-800 series aircraft to land and take off (Guernsey Press, 30 May 2017). A very interesting comment which begs the question as to why these particular aircraft.

Perhaps the reader should be aware that easyJet operate exclusively Airbus 319 and 320 Ceo aircraft and currently have an order for a further 100x320 Neo and 30x321 Neo aircraft (Ceo stands for current engine options and Neo new engine options). The Boeing 737-800 is the only aircraft which Ryanair operates (Jet2 also operate 737-800 series aircraft but also have a fleet of 737-300 aircraft which are capable of landing at Guernsey). So one is tempted to draw the conclusion that he is hoping the runway extension will attract one or more of these particular operators.

Where, we ask, does the 2013 Billet d'Etat fit in now, or did the States make yet another blunder back then?

It is, of course, very difficult to state categorically whether any of these aircraft will be able to take off and land at Guernsey even with an extended runway due to the variables in determining runway length required. It is for that reason, amongst many, that it is critical to establish whether in fact any operator will be attracted to Guernsey and if so, which routes will they wish to operate, before rushing into the folly of building a white elephant. If we are talking of these particular operators, then the States will have to be prepared to pay them to land in Guernsey just to attract their potential business because that is the basic business model of such low-cost carriers. The expression 'there is no such thing as a free lunch' springs to mind.

This, of course, brings us back to demand as referred to in June 5's and many previous letters. Considering the point of runway length and demand, is it reasonable to see if there is any correlation? Let's begin by comparing a few different airports, starting with London City, which has a runway dimension of 1,508m., some 30m. less than Guernsey. In 2016 it handled 4.5m. passengers, with 19 airlines serving UK, Europe and the USA. There are no figures we have been able to find for Guernsey in 2016, but in 2015 it handled 860,000. Jersey has a dimension of 1,706m and handled 1.6m. passengers in 2016.

In the UK a comparable number of passenger handling to Guernsey was Doncaster Sheffield, which handled 869,000 in 2016. The runway dimension there is a staggering 2,893m., long enough for even the Space Shuttle when it was flying.

Looking to Europe, Skiathos Airport provides an interesting comparison. This has a runway dimension of 1,570m and handled 350,000 passengers in 2015, almost all of which was seasonal.

There, the typical aircraft are Airbus 320, Boeing 737 and 757, the 757 being capable of a direct flight to Manchester operated by Monarch and Thomson. What does all this prove? Not a great deal, really, other than the fact that there is significantly more to attracting aircraft operators to a destination than just merely runway length, despite the mantra being chanted by the States.

And finally, a few technical matters. The physical dimension of a runway is not the be all and end all. There are other distances which come into play when considering whether an aircraft is capable of taking off and landing such as Take-Off Distance Available, Accelerate Stop Distance Available, Landing Distance Available and whether a runway has a clearway at either end.

To add to all this an operator must take into account the MTOW and the actual weight of the aircraft for take-off and the Maximum Landing Weight and actual weight of the aircraft on landing, together with other factors such as density altitude, wind strength and direction and the state of the runway, e.g: wet, dry, ice, snow, etc. The final say as to whether a particular aircraft will be capable of operating from an airfield will be determined by the standards set by the appropriate governing registration authority, the manufacturers' published figures and the operators' standard operating procedures.

So the States have clearly studied all of this and reached the conclusion that we need a longer runway... their insight, intelligence and knowledge are quite extraordinary. Or are they? We would support wholly Yvonne Burford's plea that no further monies be expended on consultants' reports, which in any event the States would ensure provide the answer they want. We propose that a fundamental precondition to any further misguided decisions as to whether the runway should be extended is that expressions of interest be invited from the aviation community to identify operators that have an interest in serving Guernsey.

Furthermore the terms, if any, must be determined upon which they would consider creating any routes and, most importantly, to where and at what cost to the island.

Only from that starting point can any meaningful debate take place as to whether there is an economic case to be put forward. In other words, we demand facts to replace the States current logic of 'we need a longer runway because we need a longer runway.'

CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT,

St Andrew's.

ROBERT WRAGG,

St Andrew's.