Controversial Aurigny bid grounded

Monday 04 November 2019

A bid to order Aurigny off the Jersey and Southampton routes has been grounded.

Guernsey Deputies Neil Inder and Barry Paint had put forward an amendment to Guernsey's Budget that, if successful, would have stood Aurigny down from competing with Blue Islands on the Jersey and Southampton routes.

However, its chances of success soon took a nosedive following criticism from fellow politicians and backlash on social media, as several people referred to Deputy Inder's election manifesto, where he called for Aurigny to be "back on the [Jersey] route in direct and aggressive competition against Flybe/Blue Islands".

The Inder/Paint amendment is set against a background of Aurigny's spiralling losses for 2019, which have gone from early predictions of £4.4m to £7.6m, while losses for 2020 could reach £10million.

"The idea of the amendment was to stimulate discussion as what to do about the huge forecasted losses expected for 2020," said Deputy Paint.

Pictured: Deputy Paint defended the intentions behind his and Deputy Inder's amendment.

"The Bailiwick cannot continue the spend so much money without affecting other more needy items on the States agenda. As you I'm sure are aware, no one in the Assembly has been privileged to see Aurigny's accounts except possibly the Aurigny board, so that arises a lot of suspicion amongst the members and the general public. 

"It is my belief that this is not helping the situation, because many may be jumping to the wrong conclusion but we do not know that until the matter is debated." 

The President of the States Trading Supervisory Board, Peter Ferbrache, said before the amendment was pulled that it was ill-advised.  

"It is very easy to pluck things from the air when you know nothing," he said.

Pictured: Aurigny declined to comment on the amendment because it was of a political nature. 

Scrutiny President Chris Green thought Aurigny's losses were more complex than the amendment's simple solution.

"It is proposing a very neat solution, but unfortunately it is wrong," he said, adding that the heavily-subsidised Heathrow route had no doubt had an effect on the States-owned airline. 

And Deputy Matt Fallaize said earlier in the week that it would "do nothing to address what are likely to be the major contributing factors to the airline’s losses: the absence of strategic direction from the States, the diversity of its fleet and dubious capital investment decisions over many years".

"I am as certain as I can be that Deputy Inder’s amendment will be very heavily defeated," he continued. "I am sure it is well-meaning and comes from feelings of frustration which many of us feel about Aurigny’s escalating and unsustainable losses.

"However, the amendment is a ham-fisted response to a set of complex problems. The last thing Aurigny needs is a committee of 40 politicians deciding precisely which routes it should fly."