£15m !!!
I am fully aware of the history of GR. My issue is that when then States of Guernsey decided to buy Aurigny the sole reason was to ensure that the GCI - LGW slots were kept and Guernsey kept the so called lifeline to London. Aurigny is still losing money every year mainly due to trying to run up to 6 flights a day on the Gatwick route. Many of you may have read my previous posts on this subject and feel that I am anti - Aurigny but I am not, I am anti "The States of Guernsey owning Aurigny". It's us poor tax payers who have to fund the Airline and deserve to see it run properly. Here is a pure example recently Flybe brought the Jet service back. How did Aurigny compete with this they lowered their prices on the Red Eye service and said on that service they would give a free hot breakfast. Yes that sounds a fair deal to compete but if you every fly on the Red Eye flights to LGW you will find both Flybe and GR are normally close to full anyway so it wont attract any more passengers as the flights are normally fully booked it's just giving money away. I cannot believe that Aurigny in their current financial situation think they can just borrow another £15m to spend on a/c for interisland / Southampton services and make the money to pay it back. Once again I state the reason the States purchased Aurigny was to secure the Gatwick slots. All of a sudden Aurigny seem to think they have an open cheque book to do what they like with. Next year the lease is up on the leased ATR they have so will it be £15M this year to replace the trilanders, and another god knows how many million next year to replace the ATR on top of the how ever many million still owed on the 2 current ATR's. Surely someone in the states needs to be thinking ahead small airlines are being squeezed out of Gatwick in a few years time if Aurigny are force out of LGW through high landing fees the States (IE Us tax payers) could end up with over £30m of debt 3 ATR's a few interisland A/c and no Gatwick link.