Guernsey Press

It’s no surprise we are falling behind Jersey

THE economy on any small island lives or dies by its air and sea transport links, the image it projects to the wider world, and the policies it adopts.

Published

For most businesses in Guernsey with a national or international focus, efficient transport links underpin everything, and these types of business are integral to Guernsey’s prosperity. Guernsey does not have air or sea transport links that are fit for purpose in the 21st century. If this continues as it is now then companies and banks and other financial organisations based in Guernsey are likely to move to other jurisdictions that do offer reliable transport links at a fair price. It will also snuff out what remains of the island’s tourist industry.

Aurigny is basically a ‘no-frills’ monopoly, state-owned airline operating the so called ‘lifeline’ Guernsey to Gatwick route, but it charges premium fares. This makes no sense for Guernsey per se or for the owners of Aurigny, i.e. the Guernsey taxpayer.

Aurigny’s fares are generally set at such an astronomical level that many local residents and potential visitors who would otherwise choose to fly to and from Guernsey and Gatwick and other destinations stay put. Rather than encouraging people to fly by offering a more or less flat and affordable fare structure on all its flights to and from Guernsey so as to fill the seats on its planes, Aurigny has a fare structure that acts perversely because it discourages many people from flying, and so its losses mount.

I give one example of exorbitant Aurigny fares – but sadly this is far from isolated. The other day I booked two one-way tickets from Gatwick to Guernsey. I was charged £190 per person. Out of curiosity I checked what I would have had to pay to fly with EasyJet from Gatwick to Jersey on that same day, booked at the same time, and the ticket price was £37 per person one way or £50 per person had we required return fares.

Aurigny should look at and learn from the ultra-efficient EasyJet business model. This means it should focus on fares that are viable for the many who would like to fly, rather than charge the very high fares that are paid through gritted teeth by those who have to fly in and out of Guernsey. It should concentrate on fast and efficient turnaround of aircraft and punctuality to replace the lackadaisical attitude that normally prevails. They should perhaps stop obsessing about making the on-board baggage allowances ever smaller and out of kilter with most other airlines and instead of that set their minds to building a website that is fit for an airline operating in this century and not the current steam-driven offering. To put it politely, the peculiar business model adopted by Aurigny isn’t working for Guernsey.

Much the same applies to the other airline servicing Guernsey. There are many examples of ridiculously high fares, but perhaps the most egregious one is this: the Blue Islands/Flybe inter-island one-way fare between Guernsey and Jersey is a standard £65 (£130 return). Is there any other scheduled airline in the world that charges £65 for a 10-minute flight? Should this fare be in the Guinness book of records? Is this exorbitant fare designed to dissuade Guernsey residents from flying to Jersey to take advantage of their much more varied and competitively priced air transport links? It certainly looks that way – and the very sharp decline in inter-island air passenger numbers in 2017 bears that out.

Jersey has many more airlines flying there and those airlines offer generally superior and more frequent services than we have to and from Guernsey. They have internationally recognised airlines such as British Airways and EasyJet and these airlines offer all-jet services on the key routes day in, day out, including, most importantly, on the Jersey-Gatwick route. Jersey residents and visitors enjoy these benefits and they do so with fares that – especially with EasyJet on the Jersey to Gatwick route – are often only around 25% of the fares being charged by Aurigny on the Guernsey to Gatwick route. That is why Jersey airport arrivals were up again last year, which is in contrast to what is happening in Guernsey on the majority of its air links. In the cold light of day, does anyone in the States really believe that Guernsey is sustainable as a vibrant business location or a tourist destination if this continues?

Guernsey should be projecting a positive and modern image to the ever more competitive outside world from where we have to attract the best people, the talent and the inward investment from new businesses that our island needs if it is to prosper in the future. Instead of doing that the States of Guernsey, in its infinite wisdom, merely tinkers with the failing travel links.

Instead of dealing with an issue that is gradually asphyxiating the economy, deputies are either busy squabbling among themselves or are engaged in dismantling a well-respected education system by taking a wrecking ball to an academically very successful Grammar School.

On the altar of left-wing dogma, and against all sense and reason and evidence, a shockingly large number of deputies consider that their priority should be to remove opportunity and restrict choice by foisting a failed educational ideology onto the island.

If the lacklustre transport links aren’t enough to deter ambitious people and successful businesses from locating to the island, then the vandalism being inflicted on the education system will achieve that result. And when those people and those businesses that are considering moving to the Channel Islands look at Jersey, what do they see? They see impressive, wide-ranging and competitively priced air links, choices in education with private schools that are not resented but encouraged, and a healthy education ecosystem of selective and non-selective schooling.

Is it any surprise that Guernsey is slipping further behind Jersey? Locate Jersey data paints a clear picture of what is happening over there.

Guernsey could soon become to Jersey what Alderney is to Guernsey, and as that process gathers pace Jersey will continue to grow and prosper, and this will be to a considerable extent at Guernsey’s expense. Jersey will go on attracting the lion’s share of inward investment from new businesses and high net worth individuals locating to the Channel Islands, who make their decisions based on hard facts relating to, among other key considerations, the cost, the choice and the convenience of transport links and also, for those people with children, on the quality and the choice of the education offering. Jersey is outperforming Guernsey on these fundamentally important measures – and Guernsey ignores these disparities at its peril.

TIM CHESNEY,

La Fontenelle Farm,

Rue du Felconte,

St Saviour’s,

GY7 9QD.

Editor’s note: See facing page for Aurigny’s response.