Originally Posted by
Aero Mad
Extraordinary slash-and-burn views appearing on here. You have an open market free of govt subsidies in the IoM (a far more comparable market to that in Jersey) which has left the business market dependent on poorly-timed easyJet flights or the privately-subsidised and apparently fragile LCY service. As covered a hundred times on this forum there weren't any easy or cheap solutions to Trislander replacement and the issues with Aero VIP are hardly a sack-able offence. The retirement of several of the aircraft now seems premature but (as covered before) this hasn't had a significant impact on punctuality until very recently, and wouldn't have saved much money (delaying the retirement of a 45 year old aircraft under the EASA regime is rather to put off the inevitable). Besides this, the external benefits to the wider economy of a broad range of regional services, and a reliable and guaranteed link to London, continue to outweigh their cost (although this isn't to say more economies cannot or should not be found). kcockayne, Aurigny is not under any formal PSOs (although, to formalise the subsidies it receives, it ought to be). All its operations are 'commercial'. If you disagree with this then it indicts the wooliness of its mandate (it is asked at once to serve two masters, profit and the community, with the various MoUs and agreements not making nearly sufficiently clear where the balance should lie between the two).
One doesn't need to rehearse the history of Channel Islands aviation to note that very few airlines ever made much money in Guernsey operating the sorts of routes and frequencies that Aurigny does, and in Alderney it's worth remembering that BUA charged almost the same real terms fares, and made almost the same losses, in 1967/8. There needs to be a far greater degree of political involvement in the subsidy of Aurigny, preferably based a system of PSOs to maintain a downward pressure on costs, alongside an understanding that such an airline will never be hugely profitable and that you can't have something for nothing. (As a not-particularly-astute outside observer I detect a wider problem in Guernsey's political culture: islanders seem to want more services but are very angry at the prospect of having to pay more taxes for them. The expectation that Aurigny should provide an excellent, cheap and frequent service and not make any losses seems to flow from the same brook.)
There is an alarming tendency to blame personalities when it would seem that circumstances (eg. far tighter regulation under EASA, issues with the second-hand Dorniers and the high cost of new-build Dorniers and Embraers, the dearth of other feasible second-hand <19 seaters and lessors thereof, the operation of the Trislanders well beyond the point where maintenance costs made them uneconomic, the lack of support from B-N - from whom Loganair for instance has waited two years for some parts etc) and the political structure of its ownership (by which its responsibilities are fundamentally uncodified and thus, attempting to please everyone it ends up pleasing no-one) are far more to blame. Scrap the whole management team and you will be left with all these problems (if an airline which provides the islands with what are by historical standards a pretty good range of connections at a subsidy of around 0.02% of their annual GDP). Changing the basis on which Aurigny is owned and funded is more subtle, rather less satisfying to the keyboard warrior but possibly considerably more effective.
But for how many years had Aurigny been aware that the Tri's were coming to the end of their service lives so for how many years had Aurigny had time to source replacements, DHC6's, Do228's, BN2's and I even believe Britten Norman were prepared to make a batch of Tri's for them?
That said I'd hate to be an operator in this day and age, from the sound of it Auirigny have been quite appalling but it seems that a staff member only has to fart and it gets reported on this forum, not just Aurigny, the Eastern Airways thread, I believe, has long since belonged in Terms & Endearment as it seems to be more about disgruntled staff than passengers, and these are just two examples.
I myself did have my own aviation business a number of years back that found itself being discussed on PPRuNe, please just remember that whilst the posters here may be pretty much free to say what they like, to slate a business off, the business(s) cannot respond discussing their product unless they have paid to commercially advertise their product on PPRuNe!