High cost of travel is strangling both tourism and business
WHEN WILL our politicians wake up and smell the coffee when it comes to our air travel links? Aurigny will always be a small and expensive airline with minimal visibility to and links with other airlines and travel companies. As we have recently had so effectively demonstrated, its necessarily small fleet offers limited resilience in case of unserviceabilities and high-operating costs.
The high cost of travel to and from the island is strangling both tourism and business, particularly as Jersey can offer a far better product at a much lower cost, with excellent links to other routes and airlines. If the current situation is left to continue Guernsey will steadily be relegated to a second class tourist and business destination. Our politicians love telling us that we will end up with fewer flights per day if other airlines come. It hasn’t happened to Jersey (admittedly with a larger population) but I think most people would prefer fewer flights, at a much more reasonable cost, with a reliable service that linked with other routes and airlines.
We urgently need to increase the effective length of our runway by installing Emas systems to our runway and actively encourage other airlines to come to the island. Lobby our politicians and let them know what you think.
MIKE TIDD
St Martin’s