£65,000 report concludes the disruption caused over many months this year was largely out of the management's control and is optimistic Aurigny's new schedule can be flown more smoothly.

The report was compiled by an aviation consultancy for the States Trading Supervisory Board after a period of extended flight disruption experienced by Aurigny between February and August 2024.

There were operational issues with two leased aircraft. One ended up running off the runway, the other broke minimum height restrictions for landing in Guernsey in poor visibility..

Aurigny curtailed its summer schedule for five weeks to enable it to source aircraft spares and another ATR.

The fifth and final ATR delivery is, according to the report, delayed until later in November. It was originally supposed to be in September, then October.

Against this backdrop, two aviation experts assessed the airline's ability to fly its 2025 schedule without the disruption seen in 2024. It also assessed the management decisions behind the regional fleet transition to all ATRs.

The clear warning in both sections of the report is that Aurigny needs to take 'extraordinary measures' to both recruit new ATR pilots and retain those it has. This is set against a global shortage of crew and larger airlines, like BA and Easyjet, offering pilots with a suitable number of flying hours an attractive salary and benefits package and the chance to fly big jets.

It points out that the airline continues to have a high, 40% turnover of ATR pilots.

For the remainder of 2024 into 2025 there remain concerns over the ability to recover from disruption due to planned ATR maintenance. But the report says the summer 2025 schedule is has 'more resilience' than this year and Aurigny will have a spare aircraft. And, there is a contingency in aircraft under ustilisation to aid recovery if there is bad weather, crewing or technical issues.

The transition from the Embraer jet to an all ATR fleet has not gone smoothly but the report says many of the issues that led to flight disruption were not foreseeable. It says getting rid of the jet was the right decision. 

It points to the well publicised issue of buying ATR spares, especially landing gear, and recommends these be sourced as in stock spares if possible, to avoid future disruption.

It says three maintenance events that grounded aircraft were 'impossible to foresee' and the problems with the wet leased ATRs were out of Aurigny's control, after it carried out due diligence on the operators before taking them on.

The report says the summer 2024 schedule had 'less slack' than previous years but it was flyable.

The authors recommend that the States, Aurigny, the airport and the head of civil aviation meet to look at ways that airport operating rules and the flying and maintenance needs of Aurigny can better be aligned.

Aurigny welcomes the thoroughness of the review and has begun to release its summer 2025 schedule from today, 4 November.

The key message to take away from the analysis is that Aurigny's operation should settle down, as long as it is able to keep the pilots it has, and recruit new ones.