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The manufacturer of the aircraft that dominates Aurigny's fleet has shed light on some of the issues affecting the airline this year - explaining why aircraft parts are in short supply, and how the covid pandemic is still affecting the industry.
ATR also claims that geo-political issues are affecting the speed at which the industry can "return to normal".
This follows the exclusive series published by Express a month ago, exploring the nature of Aurigny's reliability issues, the airline's attempts to regain the public's trust, and the future of the States owned airline.
The reliability issues in question included the unexpected grounding of an aircraft, when a fault was detected with its nose landing gear after a hard landing.
Sourcing a replacement nose landing gear proved difficult and tricky, and it ended up taking four months for Aurigny to find a suitable replacement in the form of a loaned part.
A full recap of the series is available HERE.
Now the Chief Commercial Officer for ATR, the manufacturer of the aircraft used by Aurigny, has shed some light on these issues and others impacting the aviation industry, and claims: “We want to be making an impact, a positive impact for the island and the inhabitants there where the social, economical, tourism.”
Alexis Vidal told Express: “We have a bit of an imbalance between demand for aircraft utilisation and spares and supply. After the pandemic, having a strong traffic recovery across the world and across Europe in particular. That has driven a significant utilisation of aircraft and flight hours and therefore need for parts. in the meantime, the supply chain has not yet recovered from the pandemic at the same pace, at the same level, if you wish.”
Issues surrounding the supply and demand of aircraft parts is widespread across the industry and impacting some of the biggest names in aviation.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Boeing is burning through more than $1 billion in cash per month as it has new planes sitting outside factories in need of parts. British Airways had to cancel 'hundreds' of flights due to shortage of engine parts.
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic is still being felt across the industry, and geo-political issues haven’t helped speed up the return to normality that many in commercial aviation were hoping for. Despite the global issues in play, Mr Vidal says work has been done to help mitigate these problems.
“We're working hard with our main suppliers in particular where the supply is the most constrained," he said. "That means to take specific examples, going down to making sure the raw materials and the alloys are being procured in sufficient quantities, that the forging and machining of parts are able to cope with the demands and therefore, manufacture and assemble gears as an example, and then make sure that our whole supply chain is is now fit for serving the demand.
“We see some stabilisation and we see some improvement plans bearing fruit. So there are, there are plans in place, there's work being done. I think we are more prepared now and some of the actions we've been taking like increasing supply, like without going too technical, extending some of the maintenance intervals to the extent that safety would allow.”
He added that he was “clearly working hard on one hand and optimistic on the other hand that results are paying off and we do support our customers on a daily basis anyway” and “optimistic and enthusiastic for the coming months”.
Pictured: ATR Chief Commercial Officer, Alexis Vidal.
Mr Vidal made the claim that ATR is the right aircraft for Aurigny confidently, and backed it up by citing the distances Aurigny flies, and the problems with running a jet on those routes.
“If I'm not mistaken, I think the network of Aurigny is less than 200 nautical miles of average flight sector. That is extremely well fit for a platform like ATR, as opposed to jet aircraft which are not designed for such short sectors.”
The Franco-Italian manufacturer’s CCO went on to explain that the laws of physics proved a propeller propelled aircraft is more suitable to Guernsey than anything with a jet engine.
“Instead of having a rather small diameter engine burning fuel, you have a much larger propeller moving more air slowly, and if I make it a very simple physics lesson, that's the way to be extremely efficient in flight.”
Stepping away from the physics lessons, there were other reasons cited by Mr Vidal as reasons why ATR suits life in the Channel Islands.
Such as costs of keeping them flying - “The maintenance cost of a turboprop will be 25 or 20% less expensive compared to a jet on a per seat basis," explained Mr Vidal. "Despite the larger size of a jet, you would save a lot of maintenance cost on a per seat basis using a tubal prop.”
The regular ‘high-demand’ segments of short distance flying - “Flying a jet, with all the take off and landing, take off in particular, which is the most critical, the most demanding segment of the flight of any aircraft," said Mr Vidal. "Taking off so frequently on short sectors with a jet or with a jet engine is basically not a good idea. That is why turbo propellers are made, which is to be much more agile in short sectors and therefore frequent take off and landing cycles. You would basically burn out engines, stress reversers, and all the rest of it.”
Plus the environmental impact between a turbo prop and a jet engine - “An ATR would burn 45% less fuel and therefore emit 45% less CO2 on the trip, compared to a regional jet of similar size," he explained. "That's significant nowadays given the importance of reducing our environmental footprints on the airline side, on the airport side, that's very important. ATR is also less noise around the airport, and that's extremely important for communities living in islands around the airport in particular.”
Pictured: Aurigny are a member of the GMA, which aims to speed up the process of getting grounded aircraft airborne.
ATR and Aurigny have a “global maintenance agreement” which, according to documents on the manufacturers website, offers “Optimised scheduled and unscheduled maintenance”, and can help with budgeting, the routine maintenance of aircraft, and as “a time saving tool,as it single sources spares from an integrated supply chain.”
This close working relationship is well appreciated from the side of ATR, as Mr Vidal explained.
“I think our two companies have been working quite fast, and we see and we commend, the level of expertise and the experience of Aurigny’s staff and qualified engineers to support, maintain and operate our aircraft notwithstanding the pilots of course. We're very confident with Aurigny as an airline”.
That relationship and desire to see growth between the two companies seems to extend to Guernsey itself, as Mr. Vidal continued “We want to be making an impact, a positive impact for the island and the inhabitants there, whether it’s the social, economical, tourism. That's why we're here, and that's why we are good at what we do at ATR.
“I know it has been a difficult year for the business and, and the connectivity there, but we are by all means extremely supportive to Aurigny.”
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