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The Aurigny Review Panel Report signed by James Dent, Paul Smith and Tim Robins was produced and circulated to Panel on 10th March 2017.
James Dent is a professional transport planner/transport economist who has spent most of his working life advising on transport policy and planning issues around the world. Tim Robins is an airline pilot with extensive training & managerial experience in Flight Operations & Quality Assurance. Paul Smith is a Non-Executive Company Director with widespread knowledge and experience in the development of Guernsey’s Finance Industry including business start-ups and acquisitions.
‘It was prepared in response to a draft report that had previously been prepared for the panel but that we felt needed a clearer, less ambiguous text and more far-reaching set of recommendations.
Together we have broad professional experience of the problems facing Aurigny and the Bailiwick.
Our participation in the Aurigny Review Panel was on the understanding that we would be expected to provide independent advice as experts and individuals with contacts to relevant interested sectors and associations. We believe that our report provides an holistic, unambiguous set of recommendations that will lead to less costly, more efficient and economically beneficial air transport services flowing from our underlying premise that air links need to serve the community, not the service provider.
We believe the second report, finalised in May and signed by the Chairman, Lyndon Trott (Vice President of the Policy & Resources Committee), Stuart Falla (a member of the States Supervisory Trading Board) and Andy Sloan (a professional economist, previously employed by the States but currently employed by the GFSC), is less focussed on immediate radical change and less prepared to criticise the operation and management of Aurigny. It does however recognise and recommend a number of solutions similar to those described in our own report.
Put simply, we do not believe that the Bailiwick is well served by a company that is now reported to be losing in excess of six million pounds per year. To put this in to context, this is the equivalent of British Airways losing seven billion pounds per year. We want the Bailiwick’s airline to function as an economic enabler but we recognise that Aurigny is not the lean, efficient, well managed machine that it needs to be that, as has been suggested by its management, only loses money because of the limited economic-enabling work that it currently undertakes.
Aurigny has become an inefficient, state-owned operator that has not been properly tasked or supervised by its shareholder. If the Bailiwick wants value-for-money from its airline, it will need to do some significant restructuring. The Public Service Agreements that we are promoting are well understood in the airline industry, a practical means of operating the kind of routes that the Bailiwick needs and are extensively used across Europe and further afield. There will still be a role for Aurigny, but Aurigny should no longer be the sole focus of the Bailiwick’s air transport policy.’
