I was on the GR610 last night and spent most the evening sat by the Customer Services desk in the Guernsey Departure Lounge as public announcements were not that great and updates were not always given, even if it was just a message saying we are still waiting for news etc. Icould hear what the ground staff were saying between themselves and what was being said on their radios. To be fair to the ground staff they didn't know much more than I could work out from what they were saying and flight radar and if anyone asked them they were pretty much telling them everything they knew.

The GR608 was sat fully loaded with with passengers for 3 hours before they were able to leave with the oxygen, pretty much as soon as she left the ground crew were saying the Gr610 would definitely be going at around 9.30 and that although Aurigny had said the Gr611 would operate they weren't so sure as they didn't think it would make it in time.

They were also given 15 minutes to turn the Embraer round in Guernsey which was never going to happen and it took 45 even though we were all lined up and ready to go. From what I understand as soon as we were offloaded in Gatwick at 10.55 they loaded the GR611 and then had to cancel the flight as they were not going to get back in time.

When the pilot did his message onboard he mentioned that 'amazingly there didn't seem to be any oxygen in Gatwick' which is why the Gr608 was also delayed and although the crew were trying to be descreet there was also a 'in the past this wouldn't have happened, we would have had a stand in aircraft ages ago' spoken between them.

Also, I don't know if it had any impact but COBO was down to do last night's Jersey and Southampton services but she had to be swapped out for HUET after the Jersey run due to technical issue and then some 610 passengers were questioning why the Manchester and Southampton aircraft weren't being used once they returned for the night rather than us waiting for the Embraer but to be fair even after a few passengers offloaded themselves to swap to today instead there were still 117 passengers onboard.

I got slapped with an £88 fine as the car hire company stayed open until I got there which as far as I'm concerned is annoying but the main thing is that hopefully the male passenger is ok, others however we're complaining about missed trains and wanting Aurigny to put them up once they got to Gatwick or pay for taxis so no doubt Customer Services will have had a few calls today.

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Was this a medical emergency, or a pre-booked OXY requirement?
I cannot get my head round this debacle lol

Why was the ill passenger (or did he just have required Oxygen for his flight LGW-GCI) not offloaded at LGW - ?

Surely if he was not well he should have been offloaded then medical attention should've been sought -
Or if he was just needing OXY for the flight and AUR had failed to supply it then just take him off the flight, and look after him until he can be flown to GCI in due course...

All sounds quite lubricious to cock up the whole operation for hours then actually cancel a flight full of pax. You cannot make it up!

What were the circumstances? Maybe pax became ill en-route and then required oxygen?

Aurigny don't seem to have a plan should anything happen to it's aircraft away from GCI, surely there must be a company at LGW that could have supplied a replacement oxygen cylinder without one having to be flown in from GCI? It's the same when an a/c goes tech away from base, more often than not a GCI based engineer is flown out to the stricken aircraft - sometimes in a Dornier rather than on a scheduled service - how much does that cost the taxpayer I wonder - it's time line engineering contracts were signed at their main destinations.

yes, from what was said to us it was an onboard medical emergency on the way into LGW.

How about some of the following:

- risk-management with regard to serving a very busy one-runway airport (LGW) vs. an idyllic regional airport (SOU)
- better in-time performance
- less risk to pay for passenger rights compensation
- learning from the Ryanair rulebook

GCILover - The scheduled times are gate to gate not landing and take-off. Don't know the reason for SOU 55min timings but for LGW at peak times (which is for much of the day) you can expect to queue for at least 15 mins at the runway holding point before take-off. Add this to the pushback and taxi time and it could be 30mins plus from pushback to airborne. Arrivals are often slot constrained at origin which could mean 10 - 15 min delay leaving GCI to LGW. Add on a few times around the holding stack before being vectored in sequence for landing and the gate to gate time adds up. Of course the times will differ slightly depending on if it's an ATR or the E190 doing the flight. One of the down sides I'm afraid of maximising capacity on the busiest single runway airport in the world.

Does anyone know what will happen to G-LERE when the 3 new a/c are in service? Jethros indicates that G-COB0, G-VZON and G-HUET are going.

AFAIK G-LERE is staying on as it's the newest ATR and will be a spare a/c to cover maintenance of others. Advance schedules suggest few changes, so for the time being four ATRs will be needed.

For such a small airline they are lucky to be able to afford to have ' a spare aircraft' to cover maintenance.
Surely it would be cheaper to lease in as & when required.

Heard a rumour that ATR's were being banned from Gatwick next year.

Anyone else heard this?

I remember that when DUS airport tried to push out turboprop operators after the fire in the 1990s, citing limited capacity, the airport was taken to court and lost. Public facility etc. etc.

Does anyone know why G-OAUR has been out of service for so long (7 weeks now)?

I heard it needs a new wing..
Update.
Flew briefly (18 mins) 25/10/2019

GOATR Delivery Flight
 

I don't think it actually went anywhere. Playing the flight back on FR24 just shows some rather odd movements around the airport.

The a/c does seem rather young to require a new wing. Did they damage it in some way?

So much for having a spare aircraft, looks like they are using an charted ATR 72-500 SE-MDA for the Manchester flights today
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/se-mda