During the last meeting of the States, Deputy Roffey recently made this very startling statement:
‘We do not expect to be approaching the Assembly for any further capital injection as a result of any losses made last year.
‘We expect Aurigny to be able to trade its way out of that, and so the last injection of money from taxpayers remains in 2021.’
There is every expectation that Aurigny will be declaring 2024 losses in the region of £6-£8m. or even higher.
For any relatively small company this would present a major challenge, but the president of STSB has assured the Guernsey public that Aurigny ‘will trade its way’ out of this mess and the Guernsey taxpayer will not be required to bail them out yet again.
This statement is unbelievable.
To date, Aurigny has ‘wet-leased’ in additional aircraft to provide their scheduled services on 93 separate occasions since Jan 2024. The costs are yet unknown but, from our knowledge of the market, it will be at an eye-watering figure stretching into the millions of pounds in costs. Recently, Aurigny was having to lease in two extra aircraft with an Eastern Airways ATR72 and a Titan Airways Airbus A320 operating Aurigny’s UK routes incurring yet more significant costs. This follows on from yet another Aurigny ATR which was damaged following a heavy landing, rendering it unavailable for some considerable time. Aurigny’s lack of resilience to cope with ATR unserviceability, along with a shortage of spare parts and their newly-extended network, means it is highly likely that further wet leases will be required.
The airline goes from one costly crisis to another. By no stretch of the imagination can this be called yet another Black Swan event.
The question therefore must be without another injection of capital from the taxpayer, how can Aurigny ‘trade its way out of this’ when its only income is from the paying public? Therefore, Aurigny will have to increase fares significantly to cover this sizeable overspend to the detriment of the travelling public.
Higher fares will come as a major disincentive to travel for local people and their families as well as for people visiting for business and leisure. Surely the time has come to say, ‘enough is enough’! Yet we still have poor air connectivity with high fares, unreliability and poor resilience. This has had a significant detrimental effect on the local tourist industry and, even more worrying, our vital business sector, with companies migrating to Jersey to benefit from its far superior air connectivity.
The potential of British Airways providing services between Heathrow and Guernsey, which will mean not only the significantly low fares that Jersey enjoys but also interlining which is so important to passengers travelling to and from Europe and the rest of the world. Aurigny is incapable of providing such a service due to its sub-optimal size and current operational problems. The low fares experienced by Jersey, have resulted in underpinning the growth in its GDP; a growth which Guernsey desperately needs.
The overall two key factors are low fares and a robust and reliable service. Delivering this creates the demand and by growing the market will lead to the affordable and reliable service we all require. Regrettably Guernsey has had neither for many years.
We commend the Economic Development initiative to bring BA and low fares to Guernsey.
Barry Cash
Chair, Guernsey Aviation Action Group (GAAG)
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