We will fill Blue Islands void, says Aurigny
Monday 25th April 2011, 2:30PM BST.
AURIGNY has promised to step into the breach left in Alderney by Blue Islands’ shock announcement that it will halt services to the island in May.
The airline said it would do its best to accommodate any passengers whose bookings with Blue Islands would be cancelled.
The Healthspan-owned airline said on Saturday that it would stop all its flights to Alderney from 10 May and four staff, employed by the airline at Alderney Airport, were told their jobs were under threat.
Blue Islands’ owner Derek Coates, who is due to make a statement tomorrow, could not be contacted over the weekend.
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As much as i like flying with Aurigny, will this now make them put their prices up as they have no Competition? Lets hope not otherwise we will have to rely going by sea!
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Aurignys prices are slowly getting worse and worse.
Flying on a weekend will cost around £140 miniumum unless you want to go first thing in the morning.
Some proper competition is needed
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Of course Aurigny’s prices are getting higher, but so are all other transporters. Have you not heard about the price of oil!
Most Guernsey services already have competition, and Aurigny and Blue Islands have both confirmed they are losing money. Maybe it’s about time people woke up to the fact that flying costs money and in reality Guernsey flights are actually offered at below cost.
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@ John
They are running at a loss as it is…
You want a service you must pay for it !
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I don’t know abut filling a void but what can we now do to stop them filling their boots? A big black hole in the balance sheet and an island all to themselves……..
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An Aurigny monopoly. Can’t see this ending well…
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Hello – If you think that having Alderney to themselves is a goldmine for Aurigny (or anybody else in the same position), think aqain. It might just be possible now for Aurigny to earn enough from Alderney to make the investment necessary to keep these services going, I doubt it would support any more than that.
Given the size of the local population, Alderney has a fantastic air service, stop worrying about being exploited and start appreciating what you’ve got.
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So Raymond, if I understand you correctly, Aurigny makes a loss from Alderney services?
When did they publish the data?
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Is this not the same man who told the people of Alderney that he didn’t want to seem vulgar but he had enough money to keep the proposed new merged airline going for 100 years. In his presentation to the people of Alderney last year he claimed himself to be “an honorary Alderney man”, that he had a genuine love for Alderney and that he has never done anything adverse to the island of Alderney. For all the talk about how much money he has, the pull out is all about money. Had he got his hands on Aurigny we could have seen similar cut backs taking place and with no ability to do anything about them. Thank goodness he never got his hands on Aurigny and that the people of these islands still have control over their airline links. Wouldn’t it have been good for Blue Islands to have opened up a link between say Alderney and Exeter to generate new business to/from an area never previously connected but no all Blue Islands wanted was to dilute Aurigny’s service to Southampton. Which airline adds extras flights to Southampton each year to cover Alderney Week operating up to 14 flights a day sometimes. Where were the extra flights from Blue Islands? When asked about how many extra flights that Blue Islands had operated over Alderney Week in 2010 they said that they weren’t sure how many extra flights they had laid on – I rather think the answer was none. Even the lastest venture by Blue Islands to operate a Jersey-Bristol service amounts to more of the same (Flybe already operates that route). Having said that the new Jersey-London (City) service is a welcome addition. It is a pity that Blue Islands doesn’t spend less time piggy backing on routes already operated by other airlines and spend more time developing new routes and opportunities for the people of these islands.
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Hello – They don’t publish the data, but I believe they do make losses in Alderney, or have been since the arrival of Blue Islands/Rock Hopper.
Both Blue Islands and Aurigny have expressed how expensive the Trislanders are to operate (and this will only get worse as the maintenance costs grow with age), and now the deeper pocketed Blue Islands has withdrawn from the market, despite having their hotel interests locally. Do you think they would have done that if it was possible to make a profit from their flights, or break even, or even suffer a moderate loss? No they wouldn’t. It suggests to me that making a profit in a market the size of Alderney with expensive aircraft and competition is impossible. Hopefully now Aurigny will be able to generate the profits necessary to invest in the future of Alderney’s air transport needs, and in the long term that is in the interest of everybody in Alderney.
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Isn’t this the same Blue Islands that offer free flights if you are staying in thier related hotels?
Perhaps that’s why they were making a loss on the Alderney route.
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Hi @Raymond – so we don’t really know whether they make a profit or a loss on Alderney? If we don’t know that we don’t know whether they can invest in the future or not.
Given that their market is now protected and that they are owned by the States of Guernsey it must be possible for them to publish some figures for us and come up with a longer term business plan so we know what we might be paying for with regards to the future? EG; new aircraft. Certainly Alderney States members should know this information if they are to protect the routes for Aurigny.
According to the BI Press Release: the cost of having 4 fixed staff in Alderney to service only 2 rotations a day was too high. This I can believe.
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Alderney should have it’s own Monopoly board game
looking how many monopolies their are in Alderney it should be a good game? and it could make some money for the island?
Alderney Monopoly listed below a few of the companies that could go on the board
Alderney Electricity 3 spaces? domestic fuel, electricity, and Avgas
Alderney Water
Alderney States
Alderney Shipping
Aurigny
ARE
All got something in common start with the Letter ‘A’
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Spitefire: Re Alderney Electricity, you can add road diesel and petrol to their monopolies!
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At least when we get to “B” we have both Braye Beach and Belle Vue (despite Mr Collins fervent hopes to the contrary).
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