Air route to Paris touted for next year

Monday 17 July 2023

Economic Development are working with “an operator” to reintroduce a direct air link to the French capital on a three-year pilot basis, its President has confirmed.

Deputy Neil Inder told the States Assembly on Tuesday morning that his Committee is seeking around £400,000 to establish the European link, and that without the extra cash it won’t happen.

Deputies are currently in general discussion over what government should aim to achieve up to the next election in 2025, but any funding considerations are being agreed in a traditional debate in September.

If agreed and the unnamed operator remains keen, flights to Paris could start again next year, Deputy Inder added.

“As an island there are benefits for islanders themselves as well as benefits for the French to discover coming to Guernsey, with the obvious cultural links,” he said.

“Coming back in September, we are obviously going to want to ensure that we get a European link, and that obviously falls into our air policy framework, of which a European link was important.”

The now collapsed airline Flybe attempted to introduce flights between the Channel Islands and Paris in 2006, but the idea fell through with the company criticising a lack of joined up thinking on air routes from the two islands. 

Flybe were requesting around a quarter of a million pounds from each island, but Jersey didn’t want to subsidise the route that heavily, especially since it had been predicted the route would lose £1.5m in its first year.

In 2019, then Economic Development President, Deputy Charles Parkinson said talks were underway with interested airports to establish a French air link, but finding an operator was proving difficult. 

Any route would require a subsidy, he added.

Blue Islands currently operates up to three direct flights to Rennes from Jersey per week throughout the summer months. 

Pictured (top): Deputy Inder.