The airline Flybe has collapsed, upending the travel plans of potentially hundreds of Channel Island residents.
The carrier, which narrowly avoided going bust in January, said the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on demand for air travel was partly to blame for its failure.
Flybe’s local franchise partner, Blue Islands, will continue to operate and is running additional services on Thursday 5 March to help passengers reach their destinations. Blue Islands and Aurigny are also offering special rescue fares for around £50 on their usual services for a limited time.
EasyJet is also working to help affected passengers by offering a dedicated rescue fee for customers until the end of March.
Condor Ferries has also pledged to help any disrupted passengers and has increased capacity on existing sailings over the coming days to assist those affected, and will schedule additional departures should the need arise.
In a letter to the airline’s staff, chief executive Mark Anderson said: ‘Despite every effort, we now have no alternative – having failed to find a feasible solution to allow us to keep trading.
‘I am very sorry that we have not been able to secure the funding needed to continue to deliver our turnaround,’ he added.
The States of Guernsey and Guernsey Airport are liaising with air operators, as well as the UK Government and the other Crown Dependencies. Jersey’s Minister for Economic Development, Senator Lyndon Farnham, has also been in urgent meetings with Ports of Jersey to discuss how to reduce the impact of the airline’s failure.
Deputy Lyndon Trott, Vice-President of Guernsey’s Policy and Resources Committee, said: ‘The States is working with the airport and operators to ensure business as usual as far as possible, and to ensure we protect our overall air connectivity. We welcome the steps being taken by Blue Islands and Aurigny to ensure travellers can get where they are going.
‘Flybe’s services were a valuable part of our network, but today shows the huge importance of our local operators in ensuring our resilience and minimising disruption for those travelling to and from the island.’
The collapse of Flybe comes less than two months after the UK government announced a rescue deal. Joint shareholder Virgin Atlantic confirmed that more than £135 million had been pumped into the airline over the past 14 months to keep it flying.
Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Group and Cyrus Capital Partners formed the Connect Airways consortium which intervened in 2019 to prevent Flybe’s collapse.
As Europe’s largest regional airline, Flybe carried eight million passengers a year between 81 airports.
