With flights returning to some kind of normality Aurigny, owned by the States of Guernsey, held a press briefing last week setting out its plans for the future.

Hosting the session was Nico Bezuidenhout, CEO, appointed last year, together with Kevin George, Chairman, formerly of both British Airways and Monarch Airlines.

The airline posted losses of £28m in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, up from nearly £10m the year before.  

The carrier said it was looking to reduce the complexity of its fleet and work with the tourism industry to appeal to visitors.

The plans could see the end to the use of its flagship Embraer jet and the smaller Dornier aircraft.

Nico Bezuidenhout said that the strategy was effectively about "doing more with less."

He noted: "With a simplified fleet, not only is cost reduced, reliability and dependability are improved."

Preparations are currently being made for a major refurbishment of the runway at Alderney Airport, which is part of a scheduled runway maintenance programme.  It includes consideration of extending the runway to enable the larger ATR aircraft to operate there.  

At present the Aurigny fleet consists of four ATR 72, two Dornier 228, and a single Embraer 195.  Mr Bezuidenhout said that one possibility was to take up slot availability at Gatwick and increase frequencies with the ATRs.

www.aurigny.com