Blocked runway aborts take-off

You see, demand-led ticketing (putting the cost up the more people want to fly and the fewer seats are left) works only when there is no realistic alternative. In Flybe’s case, as a regional carrier, its competition included road and rail.

Since the actual cost of providing a seat on Flybe, including fuel, was a whisker under £60, you can see why charging three-figure sums as take-off drew closer was going to drive folk into their cars or the train.

So Aurigny’s price policy means that late bookers are paying over the odds to fund the PR benefit of our carrier offering those too-elusive ‘cheap’ seats.

More to the point, if Flybe’s seat cost is sixty quid, what is Aurigny’s? We don’t know, because unlike Flybe, it is not disclosed. We do know, however, that the 489,115 passengers who flew with the airline in 2017 paid on average just over £85 to do so – but it still wasn’t enough because Aurigny made a loss of £5m. Interestingly, it makes a loss even if the price of providing the loss-making Alderney service is discounted. Flying there costs us as owners of Aurigny £3.3m. because each one of the 55,000 passengers who went there in 2017 effectively received a subsidy of £60 to do so.

I mention this not to attack Aurigny but to highlight the complexities of airline ticket pricing and two other things. The first is that our own carrier appears incapable of providing seats anywhere near as cheaply as Flybe, but nevertheless cannot make a profit.

The second is that when regionals like Flybe or Flybmi do a great job of developing new routes and generating fare-paying passengers, airlines like easyJet and Ryanair swoop in and, quite literally, steal their lunch and passengers.

We, of course, have no alternative other than to use Aurigny because we live here, so demand-led pricing works. For visitors, however, those escalating prices simply kill demand. Other destinations are available, as the latest visitor non-arrival figures demonstrate.

Which lands me neatly on to the runway, which is too short. We know this because a report for the States in 2003 by BAE Systems said an extension to 1,700 metres was the minimum needed to sustain Guernsey over the next 25 years.

Government accepted that, acted on it and as recently as November 2016 approved the planning mechanism that could incorporate a 1,700m runway and other necessary bits without the need for a further planning inquiry.

The benefits of doing so extend to Aurigny itself and the other local airlines – and also give some heft to the Assembly’s last decision to adopt a quasi-open skies policy.

It would, according to aviation expert Rob Le Page, enable all airlines, including those currently flying to Jersey, to operate here with standard regional aircraft such as the Airbus A319/320 and some Boeing 737s.

Crucially, with these airframes, most operators are capable of offering low fares – similar to those on the Jersey-UK and Jersey-Gatwick route with easyJet and BA, which we look at with envy.

We could also get summer charters in, potentially boosting those struggling tourist figures.

Yet in isolation, P&R has said ‘no’ to the extension and ‘no’ to an investigation that could (would?) demonstrate the overwhelming requirement for one.

This is puzzling. We don’t have executive government here, so P&R president Gavin St Pier sugar-coated it: we’re not going to ask consultants PwC to assess the business case for an extension because a longer runway is politically unacceptable, environmentally damaging and islanders (code for the 3,062 living in St Peter’s and Torteval) don’t want it.

It reached this prescient position by having read an earlier PwC report, which apparently says that a game-changing runway would be 1,700-plus metres. Which is what BAE told us in 2003.

We’ve not seen this latest report, available since last September but unpublished, although the Committee for Economic Development and States’ Trading Supervisory Board both have. Deputies meanwhile are also in the dark.

Deputy Charles Parkinson, as president of Economic Development, broke ranks this week, saying P&R had its head in the sand over the runway and refusal to get the facts about the benefits (or otherwise) of an extension. I’d guess STSB feels much the same way.

So for reasons we don’t understand and in the absence of any evidence – although that should really read, counter to the information we currently have – a ‘no extension’ decision has been taken.

I don’t know about you, but this screams of poor governance and runs counter to the States’ oft-repeated insistence that it takes evidence-based decisions. It is also far from transparent.

Worse, it ignores the expert lobbying from individuals like Mr Le Page and groups such as the IoD and Chamber, which said earlier this month that Guernsey’s economy continues to be damaged by under-performing air links.

Passenger arrivals here have been in decline since 2008. Those in the UK, Jersey and the Isle of Man also dipped post-crash but have since taken off. Ours have not.

We know from BAE, and subsequent States decisions, that a 1,700m runway can be accommodated without harming a single tree-hugger and our open skies policy means we want new airlines to come here.

So why won’t P&R give them a runway fit for purpose?

I think the key is the decision to have an independent review of Aurigny’s efficiency. Since it is a daft idea – ‘all’s well here, they really couldn’t lose your money any faster’ – it is more likely protectionist.

After all, the only meaningful way of determining whether something is efficient or not is to open it up to competition or seek tenders on specific routes.

Having a longer runway that accommodates the most economical short-haul jets facilitates that to the clear benefit of islanders and businesses, but potentially at the expense of Aurigny.

If that is the case, then there are decisions to be made. As things stand, however, all we know for sure is that P&R don’t want the island to get answers to the single biggest connectivity question there is out there.

States members have to overrule them.