Despite recent disruption, Aurigny has significantly improved its on-time performance rate when comparing flight data from the first half of this year to 2024.
Last year saw a series of ‘black swan’ events that destroyed the airline’s punctuality record and left passengers frustrated for months on end as flights were routinely cancelled or delayed.
Things improved during the second half of 2024, but some passengers have been caught up in delays this year too – which Aurigny has apologised for.
In an email sent to customers over the weekend, the States-owned-airline said “we’re truly sorry to anyone whose journey was affected in recent days”.
“We know how much trust you place in us when you book a flight, and we never take that lightly,” wrote Aurigny’s spokesperson in its email.
While disruption this year has been no where near the scale seen last year, the airline sought to explain what has been happening recently.
“In recent weeks, we have had fewer crew available than we would normally while new team members complete the final stages of their training,” explained Aurigny, adding that “at the same time, one of our aircraft has been out of service following damage sustained in April, which meant we had no spare to call on. Unfortunately, there were also no additional aircraft available to lease during this period.
“Back in early May, we made the difficult decision to adjust some flight schedules from mid-May into early June, realigning aircraft and crew availability to avoid disruption to your travel plans. With that preparation, things have gone mostly to plan for the month of May. However, during the last weekend, unexpected crew sickness prevented us from delivering the plan in full. Our operations and customer services teams worked hard to minimise the disruption as much as possible.”
Aurigny said it has invested in “new expertise…to tackle recruitment”, and from July a number of new staff will be joining the airline. That includes flying crew with pilot numbers increasing by around 30% from this summer said Aurigny.
The airline also said that it is working with maintenance partners to return aircraft to service safely. Avanti Air are providing fleet support during June “so you can book and travel with confidence”.
Separately – and quietly – Aurigny also recently published its performance data which showed that 86% of flights were ‘on time’ between 1 January and 31 May 2025.
That’s a 5% improvement on 2024, said the airline.
The ‘on-time performance’ of a flight is based on it arriving within 15 minutes of schedule, excluding delays caused by weather and air traffic control restrictions.
The average on-time arrival performance at London Gatwick (across all airlines, January – April 2025) was 80%.
In addition, the airline said data shows there’s been a 23% reduction in the number of delayed flights year-on-year to date.
Aurigny said this coincides with its planned transition to a simplified ATR fleet, compared to the same period in 2024 with a fleet mix of the Embraer jet, a number of ATRs and two Dornier.