Air Alderney-2
We are certainly in strange times. Covid-19 has led to Aurigny abandoning the SOU/ACI route and there is much talk on the island that it will never resume. One reason for being pessimistic is that in summer AUR would need 3 Dorniers but only now have 2.
Many of the Alderney residents (and most second home owners) have ties to the UK mainland (mainly in the South) and SOU hospital is where many islanders go for treatment. Neither have a desire to stage through Guernsey to SOU/EXT/BRS/LGW etc and to go via Guernsey costs roughly double the cost of flying direct (or it did for me on my last trip). There are also quite strong ties of the Alderney population to France (far more than to Jersey actually) and a boat charter trip operated weekly this past summer to Cherbourg from Alderney.
A further factor is the current timing of the AUR flights and the connections in GCI to ACI. On many days, to connect to ACI means an 08.30 departure from SOU (impractical for many by train) as the evening flight ex SOU arrives in GCI well after the last ACI flight has left.
So if AUR do not resume the SOU/ACI route, a replacement Air Alderney route (to SOU/Hurn/Lee on Solent or wherever) could well be viable especially as the fare base is no longer about £100 a sector but usually c £200 (via Guernsey). One boat operator (True Blue) have spotted the gap in the market and ran transfers from Poole this summer at £120 each way.
The AUR SOU service has, in past years, been two rotations daily in winter and 4 daily in summer (76 seats). So IF a BN Islander could profitably operate UK/ACI at £125 or similar I would expect reasonable demand for several rotations a day. Tagging on a leg to France (or Jersey) ex ACI might also work (in summer).
There have been some references in the last few days to the GCI/ACI PSO process collapsing and the talk is that no one has bid for it -so perhaps even ACI/GCI might open up for Air Alderney?