Blue Islands is temporarily reducing its services between Jersey and Birmingham, Bristol and Exeter due to one aircraft being damaged and the arrival of a new plane being delayed.

The carrier has apologised to passengers for recent disruption and said that the timetable changes will last until 21 July.

Flights to and from Bristol and Exeter will drop to a minimum of one a day, and there will be some days where there is no Birmingham service. Flights between Guernsey and Southampton will also be disrupted.

Blue Islands CEO Rob Veron said that airlines globally were facing “unprecedented supply challenges” including a shortage of spare engines.

However, he added that the Channel Islands airline had two particular issues: a delay to the arrival of a new aircraft that was supposed to join its fleet at the beginning of the year, and the fact that one plane was grounded after a newly installed engine ingested debris at an airport.

“The engine concerned required parts and maintenance services to return it to operations and there are extended delays in the availability of both,” he said.

“We have also been seeking an alternative new engine and expect to be able to conclude this in the coming weeks.”

He added: “We apologise to those that have been affected by the recent disruption and to those impacted by the upcoming changes.

“We understand the inconvenience this causes, and we wish to assure our customers and stakeholders we are working hard to resolve these fleet issues and fully restore our usual high on-time performance levels.

“All other routes will be unaffected and steps have been taken to safeguard essential morning and evening connectivity for key island services including hospital patient transfer and freight.”

A Blue Islands passenger plane was also forced to make an emergency landing at Birmingham Airport on Sunday following a technical issue.

An airline spokesperson explained that the flight crew received a “cockpit indication of a technical issue” shortly after departing from Birmingham.

They added that the aircraft is now “being attended to by our engineers”.

Customers booked on flights affected by the changes planned until 21 July will be contacted directly.

If a flight is no longer operating, passengers will be automatically rebooked to the best alternative.

Customers can then opt to choose another flight, if preferred, without any charges via self-service options.