Blue Islands and Aurigny have announced reduced services as coronavirus causes a drop in bookings.
Blue Islands has cancelled its twice daily Jersey to London City services with immediate effect, and hopes a full service will be reinstated in April. Any passengers booked on these services will be offered alternative travel or a refund.
‘We have seen local airlines together with low cost and international carriers cancel flights and change their schedules in response to the impact of coronavirus. Many of our business customers have been told not to travel, and of course, we are starting to see conferences and exhibitions cancelled,’ said Blue Islands CEO Rob Veron.
‘We would like to apologise to our customers for this inconvenience and we acknowledge it has been a very challenging time for local travel. The Blue Islands team is working hard to offer our customers the best service possible, but unfortunately, the impact of the coronavirus on travel is inevitable. However we sympathise with business leaders who must prioritise the health of their staff at this time.’
In addition to reducing its London Gatwick services, Aurigny will now likely use a smaller ATR instead of an Embraer jet for its remaining Gatwick flights. The airline has also raised the possibility that it will need to cancel a limited number of other routes and will notify customers of any changes.
Mark Darby, CEO of Aurigny, said: ‘Clearly the current crisis is having an unprecedented impact on many airlines’ businesses. It has already contributed to the failure of Flybe and is likely to cause other airlines to get into difficulties. We are confident the crisis will pass and that by taking timely actions to reduce our operating costs we can ensure that our operation is maintained such that we can resume normal service as soon as possible and restore Guernsey’s critical airlinks to historic levels.’
Aurigny has seen a marked reduction in sales, booking cancellations and deferrals, as a result of the uncertainty caused by coronavirus.
Its focus, it said, is now preserving the critical ‘lifeline’ connections, minimising the financial impact on the business, and creating spare resources to keep the airline going in the event that staffing levels are impacted by the virus.
