FOG that engulfed the island over the bank holiday weekend left Aurigny with a revenue deficit of £120,000. Managing director Malcolm Hart said the timing could not have been worse. With the holiday and the school half-term, it would have been the busiest weekend of the year to date.

‘Many people chose to go to the boat as it was the only way they were going to get anywhere and from our point of view it’s dead money,’ he said.

Hundreds of flights and in the region of 3,000 passengers were disrupted across the Aurigny network as fog descended on Guernsey Airport for four days from Thursday.

A 100-seater BAe 146 jet was chartered on Monday to operate between Gatwick and Guernsey to clear the backlog.

‘We were the only airline to do that and that, too, is dead money,’ said Mr Hart.

‘But our policy is to try and get people moved rather than book them on future flights and that was the only way that we could catch up.’

By the end of the holiday weekend, he said, all Aurigny passengers who still needed to travel had been moved.

‘Our staff did a fantastic job and were here until late in the night looking after passengers who were stuck. They didn’t have to do it – they could have just gone home.’

Aurigny operates about 60 flights per day.

Mr Hart flew to Bristol for an overnight stop on Wednesday but could not get back until 11pm on Sunday.

‘Hopefully the rest of the summer will make up for what was a disastrous weekend,’ he said.

Aurigny refunds passengers whose flights are cancelled and who apply in writing.

Mr Hart hoped that the contract flights that Aurigny currently operates for Royal Mail within the UK would go some way to reduce the loss.

Many people said the fog was the worst and most sustained they could remember and Mr Hart said there was no easy solution.

‘I’m told that the topography of the land around the airport precludes putting in a system that would enable aircraft to land in such weather, which is why it has never been done.

‘We can only hope that as technology improves, that may.’

No one from Flybe, whose policy appeared to be to cancel flights rather than wait for conditions to improve, was available to comment yesterday.

n The States of Guernsey bought Aurigny in May 2003 in order to secure the island’s landing slots at Gatwick.