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Alderney Airport will be operating on reduced opening hours from the 13 July until 16 July because of a shortage of air traffic controllers on the island.
The northern most isle's airport will only be open from 08:00 until midday, and then from 13:30 until 18:00 on Friday 13, Saturday 14, Sunday 15 and Monday 16 July.
Normally it is open from 07:40 until 18:30, and until 19:30 on weekends.
With the lack of air traffic controllers, the move is to ensure the available staff can safely comply with governing the amount of time they are allowed to be working.
Aurigny will be moving many of its flight times, but some will be cancelled.
"We are confident that by the end of July the situation will ease, so full opening hours can be resumed," General Manager of Ports in the Bailiwick, Colin Le Ray, said.
"By giving as much notice as possible, air carriers, private pilots, and passengers can make changes straight away to their plans. Alderney Airport is working hard to put into place contingency plans to reduce the disruption to passengers to just these four days. We will be taking the opportunity to schedule some additional maintenance activity on the airport over these extended closure periods.
"This as a consequence of our reduced ATC manning levels and I want to stress that the maintenance activity has not driven theseclosures.”
Alderney Airport said it apologises for any inconvenience this decision may cause to passengers’travel plans, and Aurigny are in the process of contacted affected customers.
In general terms, the Airline will be moving the timings of its flights over those days, but a few flights' passengers will need to be rebooked.
The Manager of Air Traffic Control, Frank McMeiken, said:
“The maintenance of safety underpins the ATC operation, and it is essential that wemaintain safe working practices for our air traffic control staff, where the risk of fatigue has to be removed from this highly specialised environment. This decision has not been taken lightly, and all other options have been explored.
"We are working hard through recruitmentand training to avoid having to impose restrictions on opening hours in the future.”
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