Aurigny Air Services-2
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why do Aurigny run their inter-island services and Southampton services at the same time as blue islands ; surely this is not sustainable??
Why not a higher frequency Dornier service
Were these routes simply to use G Huet?
Anyone know about loads?
Why not a higher frequency Dornier service
Were these routes simply to use G Huet?
Anyone know about loads?
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How long it two airlines can compete like this remains to be seen. It happened before when Jersey European took on KLM UK. They didn't compete for all that long.
Yes, the route has utilized G-HUET, but at times an ATR72 is used.
Loads have been good. I was told this at check-in at SOU a few weeks ago. Some have been full. Very attractive fares have been offered, at £19.99 well below LGW prices.
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With FlyBE reportedly pulling the JER EMA service would it be worth Aurigny making EMA GCI JER a triangular route. I flew GCI EMA 14 Sep ....it was quite full but I don’ think this is usual. Might be worth a try.
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Aurigny seem to be running with one Dornier at the moment. G-LGIS has been off for 3 days but G-OAUR hasn't been out for a few weeks. Any ideas what is happening - are both a/c tech?
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Both G-OAUR and G-LGIS were in the hangar (along with G-VZON) this afternoon. G-OAUR was last in service on the 6th. Both are undergoing maintenance. To create space G-SAYE was moved outside. (Don't know why they are hanging on to this fairly useless frame.) All Dornier flights were operated by G-ETAC today which meant cancelling services to SOU or running others at different times. Alderney residents are bound to have their own thoughts.
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Thanks for the comments. I have wondered why they acquired G-SAYE in the first place as it is a lower spec a/c than G-LGIS (it has a lower MTOW, hence reduced capacity). It seems to me as well that if they need 2 a/c operational every day to offer the ACI service, then relying on a 31 year old a/c as part of a fleet of 3 is perhaps being a little optimistic. I guess that they should have bought 3 new a/c once they had decided on the move to Dorniers, but perhaps they weren't allowed to do so.
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G-OAUR is still out of service after 1 month. This seems like rather a long time for routine maintenance on a relatively new a/c - I wonder what the problem is. G-LGIS is also out of service for 4 days, so they must be having problems there as well.
The Dornier saga goes on & on !
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From what I gather, the Alderney schedule requires a single ACI-based airframe with 4x daily flights to GCI and 2x daily flights to SOU. Which means that Aurigny has three Dornier 228s to cover a schedule that requires a single airframe. So effectively they have the luxury of having two spares in the hangar? So it should be no surprise that examples are not to be seen for a considerable time. Or am I missing something here?
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Do Aurigny operate occasional charters to Spain?
Looked up G-HUET on FR24 and saw it had made the trip GCI-AGP-GCI back in December last year. Return sector was over 3.5 hours! Impressive for an ATR42. In Feb and March of this year an ATR72 also operated down there.
Wasn't sure if these were charters (as hadn't seen these mentioned before) or if they were for other operational reasons.
Looked up G-HUET on FR24 and saw it had made the trip GCI-AGP-GCI back in December last year. Return sector was over 3.5 hours! Impressive for an ATR42. In Feb and March of this year an ATR72 also operated down there.
Wasn't sure if these were charters (as hadn't seen these mentioned before) or if they were for other operational reasons.
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G-HUET as well as all three ATR72s went to Malaga last winter and onward to Las Palmas for maintenance. One of the legs from GCI to AGP and return took pax - a special put on by Aurigny.
As for the Dornier saga, one airframe can do the required flights over the winter months, but the schedule requires two - one based overnight in ACI, the other at GCI. Normally the Guernsey a/c goes to ACI and on to SOU, while the Alderney aircraft begins the day with a trip to GCI. If flight times are adjusted for one a/c to do the lot, starting from ACI, it means a delay for the GCI-ACI first flight of the day and a delay for the morning ACI-SOU sector.
Forgetting G-SAYE (which is a bit of a disaster with its limitations and no longer flies) there should be one spare airframe, not two.
As for the Dornier saga, one airframe can do the required flights over the winter months, but the schedule requires two - one based overnight in ACI, the other at GCI. Normally the Guernsey a/c goes to ACI and on to SOU, while the Alderney aircraft begins the day with a trip to GCI. If flight times are adjusted for one a/c to do the lot, starting from ACI, it means a delay for the GCI-ACI first flight of the day and a delay for the morning ACI-SOU sector.
Forgetting G-SAYE (which is a bit of a disaster with its limitations and no longer flies) there should be one spare airframe, not two.
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Latest projections for AUR are a £9.7m loss next year - to add to £7m for this year & £4m for last year. The States of Guernsey are attempting to determine what exactly is in its & AUR's best interests to make the airline a "going concern". Meanwhile, the "Runway Extenders" are continuing to push their pet project on the promise of enabling low cost carriers, larger aircraft & lower fares to be offered. Pie in the sky ! Larger aircraft, low cost airlines & lower fares will only materialize as a result of a large increase in demand. With a population of 65,000 people & a declining tourism industry, this will not happen. If the States want AUR to continue to operate, & especially if they want it to be profitable, then the last thing that they should be doing is extending the runway & letting low cost carriers operate to the island. AUR could never compete with Easy Jet etc. AUR could never make a profit in those circumstances. Even if they maintain their monopoly on the Gatwick route AUR will struggle to become profitable. The only way for them to achieve that would be to cut the fleet to three ATR 72s, drop the E195 & drop all their other routes, with the possible exception of Southampton. Discuss .....
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Latest projections for AUR are a £9.7m loss next year - to add to £7m for this year & £4m for last year. The States of Guernsey are attempting to determine what exactly is in its & AUR's best interests to make the airline a "going concern". Meanwhile, the "Runway Extenders" are continuing to push their pet project on the promise of enabling low cost carriers, larger aircraft & lower fares to be offered. Pie in the sky ! Larger aircraft, low cost airlines & lower fares will only materialize as a result of a large increase in demand. With a population of 65,000 people & a declining tourism industry, this will not happen. If the States want AUR to continue to operate, & especially if they want it to be profitable, then the last thing that they should be doing is extending the runway & letting low cost carriers operate to the island. AUR could never compete with Easy Jet etc. AUR could never make a profit in those circumstances. Even if they maintain their monopoly on the Gatwick route AUR will struggle to become profitable. The only way for them to achieve that would be to cut the fleet to three ATR 72s, drop the E195 & drop all their other routes, with the possible exception of Southampton. Discuss .....
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I came back from Manchester a couple of weeks ago, and there were only 24 people on it. The time before when I was flying to SOU, I counted 16 people board the Aurigny SOU whilst the Blue Islands one was almost full. Yet, they are blaming everyone else for their losses.
I can see Flybe/Virgin whatever they will be called re-start the MAN at some point to link in to Virgin long haul. Last time Flybe operated the route, the flight was more or less full every day, operating once a day around lunch time. Their licence got revoked as they were accused of cherry picking when they operated the route. Funny how now Aurigny can operate flights to JER from GCI only when they think they can make money, which from what the crew are saying is another route with extremely poor loads.
I can see Flybe/Virgin whatever they will be called re-start the MAN at some point to link in to Virgin long haul. Last time Flybe operated the route, the flight was more or less full every day, operating once a day around lunch time. Their licence got revoked as they were accused of cherry picking when they operated the route. Funny how now Aurigny can operate flights to JER from GCI only when they think they can make money, which from what the crew are saying is another route with extremely poor loads.
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Guernsey's population is basically half the size of Jersey's; there is a problem of strategy/utilisation but also a complete political failure to address Aurigny's funding, and a lack of political joined-up thinking in the simultaneous introduction of open skies and the decision to fund a competitor airline to fly a competitor route (Heathrow); although Economic Development say the route was offered to Aurigny but Flybe offered a cheaper and better-timed operation, the end result (if one looks at the CAA stats) is an almost direct leakage of 3-4k passengers per month from LGW to LHR, and the States of Guernsey spending about £66 per passenger (when I last worked it out, including lost revenue on GCI-LGW) to compete with itself. As far as I can see the only way Aurigny would ever balance the competing ends of making money and providing a satisfactory level of service would be in a protected regime with sole operator status on GCI-JER, with a larger market supporting the community service and intense seasonality of the ACI operation, and on GCI-LON as the thickest market in supporting the wider regional operation, which could then be left to open skies. This setup would effectively use the profitable (commercial) part of the operation to support the unprofitable (community service) part, which was the traditional model of Aurigny operation from 1968. However, now that genie is out of the bottle there will in practice probably be little change of squeezing it back in again. In the absence of suitable regulation, the only other way is to derive a suitable cost advantage on the routes - particularly the inter-island ones might work well for electrification in the next 5-10 years - which could destroy the rationale for competitors' ATR/Q400 ops. But that requires investment and foresight which is also presently lacking. Probably only a new generation of politicians and managers would get us there on that - but one just has to hope that the current setup doesn't sap to extinction the political will for Aurigny's existence in its current form.