Aurigny rationalises fleet and plans to "do more with less"

Saturday 20 March 2021

Aurigny has decided to return to the skies with fewer aircraft after the island’s lockdown.

The decision has been made to “simplify” the operation of the airline and retire three aircraft.

Two classic Dorniers and the last remaining ATR 7-500 will be taken out of operation and leave both the ATR and Dornier fleets consisting of one type of aircraft. It now means Aurigny owns all of its fleet of aircraft, with the older ATR set to return to its owner when Aurigny's lease agreement expires in November. 

“The rationale behind standardisation of our fleet is to simplify the Aurigny operation,” said CEO Nico Bezuidenhout. “It is important to have the right aircraft that meet the needs of our business, customer and operations.”

Pictured: The Aurigny fleet will be comprised of six planes that the company itself owns. 

It aligns with Aurigny planning to restart a more regular flight schedule, as Guernsey tentatively starts to plot a route out of lockdown and the opening of our borders.

“The removal of these three aircraft also greatly reduces the overall age of our fleet which in turn has the benefit of reducing maintenance costs,” said Mr Bezuidenhout.

“Whilst the restructure of Aurigny has been done predominantly to aid efficiency and reduce cost there is also the added advantage that standardisation of fleet gives consistency."

Aurigny plans to use their ATRs “more extensively” in the future. This should include the ability to put on double-daily connections to more destinations in the future.

Pictured: Mr Bezuidenhout took over as CEO from the retiring Mark Darby last year. 

The new management's desire to rationalise its fleet has raised longer-term questions over the Embraer jet.

New Chairman Kevin George said last week that the airline's highest-capacity aircraft will play a pivotal role in the short-term, but that serious questions would be asked about its longer-term future because of the upkeep and lack of resilience that comes with having a single aircraft of its type in the fleet.

It has also been recently revealed that 49 Aurigny staff have been let go and that another 11 were facing crunch talks over their jobs due to the shrinkage in Aurigny's staffing requirements. 

From an aviation perspective, Mr Bezuidenhout said the loss-making States-owned airline needs to "do more with less". 

“Even minor diversity in aircraft can incur extra costs, in simple terms an ATR 72-500 is different to an ATR 72-600 and a Dornier Classic is different to a Dornier New Generation. These subtle nuances create inefficiency and require extra resources, equipment and training across the business.”

“Through doing more with less – less complexity, less inefficiency and less unproductive duplication, we aim to make Aurigny more sustainable, offer our customers more services and, ultimately, make air travel more affordable.”