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ALDERNEY

Old 28th Dec 2011, 22:57
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All tin canary said was that you were 'a bit harsh' - I don't think that comes anything near to approaching a restraint of free speech.

they are a nuisance due to their speed or lack there of and noise
Frankly, that just seems fussy. I flew into ACI this evening on JOEY without issue - is twelve minutes too much for you? If so, you're welcome to foot the bill for some nice new Twotters and/or 228s... and whilst you're there, bring back some Tecnam P2012s or maybe even some Dash 7s.
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Old 5th Feb 2014, 08:59
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Runway news

Various reports coming out about the grass areas being waterlogged, lights being in the wrong place etc etc.

Upshot seems to be the crosswind limits have changed?
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Old 5th Feb 2014, 11:13
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Declared lengths reduced on 08/26 to 799m and width on the same runway to 18m by NOTAM. Apparently IFR flights suspended, though haven't had that confirmed. The Tris fly SVFR usually so it won't affect most flights. New (temporary?) draining system also in place, despite both grass runways being closed.

NOTAMs
Q) LFRR/QMDCH/IV/NBO /A /0/999/4942N00213W
A) EGJA
B) 14/02/04 17:30 C) 14/03/14 18:30
E) RWY 08/26 TEMP REDUCED DECLARED DISTANCES. RWY 08 TORA, TODA, ASDA AND LDA 799M. RWY 26 TORA, TODA, ASDA AND LDA 799M. EXISTING RWY THRESHOLDS REMAIN IN USE. RWY WIDTH 18M. RWY SFC ASPHALT
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Old 15th Jul 2014, 21:36
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Re the public meeting at the Island Hall this evening, the three men who called it haven't quite nailed down their argument. A few observations:
  • No formal representative of Aurigny was present.
  • One of the five people (out of the 120 present) who attempted to refute the arguments made was booed and silenced for being 'biased'. The argument was thus significantly one-sided.
  • The three men laid out the narrative that Aurigny is claiming that the Alderney routes are making losses, but they are in fact making profits - but that the routes are thus under jeopardy. But why would Aurigny wish to cut profitable routes? The argument doesn't quite add up.
  • They don't seem to give any sources for various assertions:
- their claim that Dornier's and RUAG's assertions that the 228 and 228NG models are suitable for quick change medevac operations are wrong.
- their claim that a lavatory will be needed on GCI-LCY (on which the type is to be used) and thus that four seats must be removed.

- their assertion that operating costs are lower on the 228 and 228NG than on the Trislander, which is now costing £500 per flying hour to maintain.

- their claim that the Alderney - Southampton route is under threat in some way.

- their claim that frequencies and thus seat capacity will be reduced (Aurigny has stated it will keep to the same frequencies as the current timetable, thus seeing a slight increase in the number of seats available).

- their fundamental assertion that Alderney routes are in fact profitable.
With all due respect to the well-meaning people involved, they seem misled. I can't for the life of me understand why, at this late stage, they are attempting to stop the States of Guernsey from spending significant quantities of money on safer, faster, quieter and more modern aircraft than the Trislander, which as a 44 year old design was the product of innovation and dynamism in its day but perhaps has seen its best days behind it.
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Old 15th Jul 2014, 21:46
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Re the public meeting at the Island Hall this evening, the three men who called it haven't quite nailed down their argument.
Could you please elucidate what this meeting was called for, by whom and in response to what; as otherwise your post is intriguing, but indecipherable.
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Old 16th Jul 2014, 06:19
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The public meeting was called by three residents of Alderney, who had tried to raise questions at last week's Peoples Meeting (the local government monthly public consultation forum) but who ran up against time constraints.

I did not make it to the meeting sadly, so thanks to Aero for posting his summary.

One of their concerns does however ring true for me, that of the proposed schedules. Firstly there does not seem to be any slack, so tech/wx/medi interruptions will result in regular withdrawal of flights. Secondly they seem to be suggesting that two or three a/c will be able to serve four routes, which does not seem to add up at all?
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Old 16th Jul 2014, 09:44
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Cut Alderney loose from the States owned airline. Hope they have deep pockets in the northern isle to run their own airline.
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Old 17th Jul 2014, 10:34
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Well, the Northern Isle did form and run an airline back in 1968 (I think it was, from memory). That airline was called Aurigny.

The whole question of the economics is being confused by 'smoke and mirrors'. Aurigny have claimed that they are losing £900,000 a year on the Alderney route but when challenged on this figure they remain stubbornly reticent as to how this figure is arrived at. This was mentioned in the States debate earlier this year.
http://www.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=88629&p=0

Word on the ground is that Aurigny want to axe the Alderney-Southampton route and move all passengers through Guernsey. This will make it near impossible for business types to visit London for example and back on the same day.
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Old 17th Jul 2014, 14:41
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If Aurigny wanted to axe the ACI-SOU route they wouldn't be buying Dorniers, now would they? They'd simply let the Tris stagger on between ACI and GCI. The simple fact is that politically, it is impossible for Aurigny to drop the ACI-SOU route, no matter what the economics of it. By replacing the Tris with Dorniers they are not only saving themselves money--I serious doubt the DOC of a DO228 is £500ph--but they have opened up the possibility of operating other routes.
The group of enthusiasts in Alderney obviously have their own agenda but they are completely unrealistic. No existing airline in Europe would buy newly-manufactured Tris. To set up a new airline--if that is their ultimate idea--is prohibitively expensive and there are many legislative hoops to jump through. The days of the 'mom and pop' airlines are pretty much done. The infrastructure required by the various authorities simply won't make a small airline economically feasible. Alderney does not exist in some sort of bubble, they would have to comply with all existing regulations and any that come into being in the future. Not the least of the hurdles which would be getting permission for a new airline to fly into SOU. I haven't looked at a SOU SID plate for a while now, but the last time I did Tris got a 'special mention'. Too noisy.

The Tris have had their day. I fully understand nostalgia and the Islanders' affection for them but the Dornier is a vastly more capable aircraft. There has been a load of rubbish talked about how (ultimately) 3 DO228s can't replace 6 Tris, but the simple fact is that all 6 Tris are rarely serviceable at the same time. Due to increased speed, there would be absolutely no problems caused by one DO228 going tech. The morning LCY aircraft will be able to fill-in, even if flights would be delayed. That's assuming that 1 out of three Dorniers will be tech/unavailable at any given time, which in my opinion is a totally unrealistic assumption.
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Old 17th Jul 2014, 17:59
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Word on the ground is that Aurigny want to axe the Alderney-Southampton route and move all passengers through Guernsey. This will make it near impossible for business types to visit London for example and back on the same day.
beaufort1 you're local and should know that the Alderney rumour mill often spins in interesting directions. On this occasion it is peddling utter bilge. There is absolutely no truth in that rumour, and Aurigny's actions point to it. Why would they both investing in Dorniers (which improve the economics of the SOU by substantially more than the GCI) if they were going to chop it? You know as well as I that Aurigny's political masters would never allow it anyway. It would ruin the island, unless there were probably at least 12x daily GCI services - which would only somewhat mitigate the impact of the loss.

fudpucker is bang on the money - we no longer live in 1968 and it's important that we work with Aurigny, rather than against it. Senior figures in Aurigny are deeply irritated about how ungrateful some in Alderney seem about their attempts to maintain the level of service on both GCI and SOU. The campaign is in fact very dangerous when you consider that this plays very well in Guernsey - the politicians there ideally don't want to spend up to £18m on new aircraft, but they've voted to do so. Here lies the opportunity not to... if they hand over the keys, take Dickin Drew's £200,000pa profit figure at face value and thus provide no subsidy, this whole thing will stop being such a game and escalate very quickly.
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Old 17th Jul 2014, 18:16
  #131 (permalink)  
 
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If Aurigny wanted to axe the ACI-SOU route they wouldn't be buying Dorniers, now would they?
I don't follow.

They are halving the number of aircraft and intend to add an additional route. How long is the GCI/LCY/GCI going to take? Three hour round trip, realistically? If that is designed for business types out of Guernsey that is going to be six hours out of the day taken up just on that one route, if there is an early flight and a late flight. So for a major part of the day they are left with a couple of Dorniers to service ACI/SOU, ACI/GCI, GCI/DNR and I'm not sure what the situation is with Blue Islands and the code share agreement between JER/GCI. Add in technical problems and something has to give. I'm probably missing something, perhaps they intend to run the Tris alongside the Dorniers until they can get hold of some more Dorniers, and then withdraw the Tris.

I've already had personal experience this year of not being able to travel; this well in advance, due to lack of capacity and I know of at least one sporting event in Alderney that has had to be cancelled due to lack of seats this year. Local residents have a right to be concerned.
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Old 18th Jul 2014, 08:47
  #132 (permalink)  
 
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The trouble is local residents don't listen to the answers they are given. You are correct in that a LCY rotation will take about three hours in total. I'd say it would realistically be three and a quarter hours before a 228 could complete the LCY rotation then depart for ACI.

You complain about lack of capacity on the routes out of ACI. The Dorniers will provide more seats. At best the Tri can lift 16 pax, the Dornier 19...and that's on the ACI-GCI route. I believe on the ACI-SOU route a realistic load for the Tri is 14 pax plus bags. For the Dornier it will be 19 pax plus bags. My basic grasp of mathematics tells me that per sector there will be an additional 5 seats. I don't want to complicate the issue but extrapolating on a four rotation day ACI-SOU that will mean an extra 40 seats. And that's just running one Dornier. If there is occasion to run two Dorniers during the day, say for a sporting or cultural event, then EACH Dornier will give an extra 5 seats per sector on the ACI-SOU route.

In 'the good old days' Aurigny had spare Tris that they could 'throw' at Alderney when the occasion demanded. That excess capacity cost money--lot's of it--and in today's market no airline can afford to have aircraft sitting around on the off-chance that they may be needed due to unserviceability or for the relatively few times during a year when excess capacity is needed for a few days. I'm thinking of Alderney Week here. At times the effort by Aurigny resembled the Berlin airlift in its intensity. I remember 17 rotations ACI-SOU! That was on perhaps 2 days of the year. No airline can afford to have that excess capacity just sitting in the hangar...but for many years Aurigny did and were their efforts appreciated? Nope, not that I remember. In fact it seemed to be winge, winge, winge most of the time.

I'm sorry but you simply have to understand that off-Alderney, everybody else thinks you are exceptionally well served in terms of air links. I would go further, Alderney is thinking of investing in a potty scheme to build a new marina. Quite apart from the fact that, as a keen yachtsman who has extensively sailed around the Channel Islands, I don't think the demand for such a marina is there, if the links are so bad why would anybody invest in a marina? I mean, how are the yotties going to get to their boats? It would have made far more sense if over the years more investment had been put into the airport and tourist industry by local investors. Instead of that, all that has happened is there has been a continuous 'winge' from Alderney about how badly served they are. You wanted competition because Aurigny had a monopoly. You got Air sarnia. That went bust, mainly due to lack of local support but there were other reasons, I accept that. You then got Rock Hopper, as was, some years later. They pulled out of Alderney, but not before they had got a route licence for ACI-JER. Aurigny warned at the time that two airlines on the route was unsustainable but nobody listened, so Aurigny pulled off the route. Then RH/BI pulled out of the island all together. Aurigny did not reinstate the route because it didn't pay. Didn't pay means they lost money on it. I hope you're able to follow this because it really isn't rocket science.

Now you (Alderney) are being offered extra capacity and what do we hear? More wingeing and mutterings of starting yet another new airline. The cost of doing so would be prohibitive and let's face it, would give Aurigny, or rather the States of Guernsey, the perfect excuse to say 'adios'. It really is a case of being careful what you wish for because you might just get it. The airline 'game' in 2014 is completely different to what it was in 1968, or even 1998. Some of those aviation 'experts' on Alderney simply don't appear to realise that.
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Old 18th Jul 2014, 10:14
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My basic grasp of mathematics tells me that per sector there will be an additional 5 seats.
My basic grasp of reality tells me that it doesn't matter how many seats there are on a specific aircraft, that aircraft can't be in two places at the same time. How are the Dorniers going to service the sectors mentioned? I'm not aware of this being explained in any detail in the public domain. Perhaps you can provide some details?

I remember Air Sarnia, and am aware of some of the problems, trying to run a service with one aging Islander was a little ambitious.

As for the marina plans, the current ones are a bit pie in the sky as they rely on new houses being built on the green site to generate the finance to build the marina, after reading something in the local paper it is alleged that the company proposing this development have something like £15k in the bank. Their status as preferred contractor runs out at the end of this month. I agree with you in regard to viable travel links but it has become a bit of a 'chicken and egg' situation. I disagree with you in regards to demand, I've over thirty years professional experience in the maritime industry within the Bailiwick of Guernsey and have also sailed/raced fairly extensively, from experience of the new French marinas that have been built over the last couple of decades along the Brittany coast they are all bustling places which have generated local business in terms of chandleries, restaurants and the like. As an example in Normandy, look at the amount of property built in Carteret during the last decade or so and the prices being charged for them. Geographically, Alderney is ideally placed at the crossroads for vessels cruising into the Bay of St.Malo and a protected marina would be well utilised.
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Old 18th Jul 2014, 11:55
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Grrr

I seem to remember Air Sarnia having one Islander & Two Trislanders, I also don't see what difference there is between a then aging Islander & now very aged Trislanders!
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Old 18th Jul 2014, 12:40
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You could well be right Jerbourg, but I only remember the islander. T'was a while ago, early 80's? Memory is not what it was.

EDIT : Now you say that I can vaguely remember a mainly white tri with the dark maroon livery of Air Sarnia.
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Old 18th Jul 2014, 16:08
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fudpucker

100% correct !
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Old 18th Jul 2014, 21:11
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Air Sarnia had Islander G-UERN and Trislanders G-BEFP and G-SARN. Both Trislanders were white with blue lines down the side (not the same shade of blue). Going back further you had Alderney Air Ferries with 3 Islanders followed by Metropolitan Airlines with Twin Otters and then Air Camelot/Aviation West. After that was Le Cocq's Airlink which became Rockhopper and then more recently Blue Islands.
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Old 18th Jul 2014, 22:05
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Take a look at the prices charged by French marinas and you'll see why they are busy places. If you live in the South Coast of the UK then you can take your car on the ferry to Cherbourg, stock up with still cheaper than UK supermarket wine and food , fill your car with cheaper diesel (assuming it is a diesel, of course) and still be better off than basing the boat in a marina in the S UK. What has Alderney to offer to compete with that? Zilch, frankly. At best visiting boats will stay one, perhaps two nights unless weather-bound. Sorry and all that, I quite like Alderney as a place to visit for a day and a night but any longer? Can't see it and I haven't met anybody who lives in the UK who wants to base their boat in Alderney. By all means invest in some more mooring buoys and most people agree the water taxi is reasonable value but anything else? Nah!

I don't quite follow your comment about one aircraft being in two places at once. I imagine that one Dornier will do the LCY run and one other will be allocated to ACI routes. I would guess that the LCY aircraft will then do a Dinard rotation on appropriate days. If/when all three Dorniers do arrive then that would leave one spare aircraft so I'm sorry, but for the life of me I simply cannot see what all the wingeing is about, nor can I see where there is any room for confusion. My understanding is that Aurigny have stated that rotations to SOU will not be reduced, ergo there will be more seats on offer...really, it can't be much simpler than that. Per sector, there will be five more seats on offer to SOU using the Dornier. If Aurigny cut the number of Dornier rotations to three every day, then you would still be 2 seats better off than 4 rotations in a Tri.
The figures look like this: 3 rotations = 6 sectors. 19 seats per sector =114 seats on a 3 rotation Dornier day.
A tri on 4 rotations (8 sectors) =14x8= 112
So a Dornier on 3X rotations ACI -SOU=114 seats in total
And a Tri on 4x rotations ACI-SOU=112 seats
114-112=2.
but if they maintain the current schedules then on a four-rotation day you will have 40 more seats than at present.
4x rotations in the Tri=8x14=112 seats (4 rotations = 8 sectors, remember?)
4x rotations in the Dornier= 8x19=152 seats

So bearing in mind those figures and I'm not going to apologise for so labouriously spelling them out, somebody obviously had to, what the hell are all the complaints about? You will get more seats, a faster more comfortable aircraft and for those worried about it, two pilots. I have no idea what the medivac arrangements will be, except I am certain that whatever the States say they want Aurigny to provide, Aurigny will provide. If you're worried about Aurigny having a monopoly, ask BI why they pulled out of Alderney and if you can find him, ask Brian Rayward why he sold Air Sarnia. Routes to and from Alderney can only support one carrier, and then only just!
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Old 18th Jul 2014, 23:32
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fudpucker

100% correct, again !

We are talking about an island population of less than 2000 which is only inflated by visitors from May to August (in the main).

Plenty of scope there for a frequent shuttle service!
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Old 19th Jul 2014, 07:28
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Thanks for the explanation, I'm not whinging, I and others I've spoken to fail to see how 6 Tri's replaced by 3 Dorniers will give better flexibility and resilience. You are still losing capacity however you dress it up, it's basic mathematics. When a Dornier goes tech. there is going to be one of the routes without any cover.The Law of Sod dictates that will happen at the most inconvenient time, e.g. during Alderney Week. I heard their brand new £25m Embraer was taken out of service this week due to technical problems, right at the start of the school holidays, another example of the Law of Sod at work. I'm not Aurigny bashing, they have provided an excellent service in my opinion over the years and they certainly go the extra mile on the LGW/GCI route getting passengers back to Guernsey if there have been delays due to weather for example.
I agree with you that there is probably only enough capacity for one airline on the Alderney route, although recently I see that there is a French company advertising flights on an ad hoc basis and is based in Cherbourg I think.
I'm not sure what the arrangement will be in regard to medivacs, I think at present a Tri is based in Alderney overnight, haven't both Guernsey and Jersey recently signed a contract with a dedicated Air Ambulance based on the South coast of the UK fairly recently, Exeter possibly. I don't know how that fits in with things.

I genuinely feel sorry for you if you think Alderney is only worth a visit for a day, you probably haven't explored much further than the harbour or the main town. I wasn't envisaging UK owners basing their yachts in Alderney, that has been tried in St.Peter Port and there hasn't been a great take up, even with hugely discounted rates throughout the Winter. A sheltered marina with proper facilities makes Alderney more attractive for visitors, not everybody wants to roll all night on a swinging mooring and it can be uncomfortable with the wind in the NE.
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