Blue Islands ultimatum: Improve or go!

Thursday 28 July 2016

Pressure is mounting on Blue Islands to improve their service between Jersey and Guernsey, with business leaders warning they must sort out the problems, or let someone else run it. But this morning the airline has maintained they are "aligned" with their customers.

The Jersey / Guernsey service is operated by Blue Islands but tickets are booked through Flybe. Once again this morning, it is impossible to fly to Guernsey from Jersey before 10:25, shortening the opportunities for the business community to travel for a day's meetings. It has been a similar story for most of the week, with Blue Islands saying their normal schedule won't resume until next week. Rather than listing the usual 08:10 departure today as cancelled, the airport website doesn't even list the flight at all.

Chairman of Chamber's Transport and Tourism sub-Committee, Andy Jehan, said: “A robust inter-island service is needed for the business, tourism and leisure industries, a service which has to be affordable. Our members are frustrated with the unreliable inter-island service the operator is providing, many of whom have commented that it is cheaper to fly to the UK than a short 15-minute flight to Guernsey.”

Mr Jehan goes on to say: “Blue Islands used to provide this with their partner Aurigny and if Flybe are unable to continue with the required levels of service then perhaps the route should be put out to tender.”

In response, Blue Islands' MD Rob Veron has said:

“We are 100% aligned with our customers and focussed on returning to the levels of on time performance we all reasonably expect. The inherent nature of all transport services means that at times there will be disruption which of course can and does affect all air, sea and ground operators at various times. The Blue Islands team is working tirelessly to resolve the current issues which will be rectified over the next few days, our published timetable will resume on Monday and we are taking measures to mitigate against the risk of future occurrences. Disruption today is further exacerbated by fog in both Guernsey and Jersey.”

The Minister responsible for Economic Development and Tourism, Senator Lyndon Farnham, wants a meeting with Mr Veron, but so far it doesn't seem like any date has been set.

It's also difficult to know what control Senator Farnham has over the route, given that the Island has an 'open-skies' policy, and there is no service level agreement in place on which to hold airlines to account. On that basis, it's not yet clear how it could be put out to tender. 

In recent weeks there has been a catalogue of delays and cancellations on the inter-Island route. In part Blue Islands says this has been because of problems with leasing an extra aircraft.