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Economic Development have released some of the details of Aurigny's Alderney PSO bid, which the committee has rejected, and said it will have to start the process again.
The States-owned airline reportedly tried to get a subsidy "greater than the losses currently being incurred" from Economic Development, and also only planned to fly with two aircraft compared to the current four.
On these grounds, the Committee running the PSO was forced to reject all four bids it received, because none of them met the terms specified in the invitation to tender. It has now said it will approach the task of finding a suitable operator for the route again, from the ground up.
Since this announcement Aurigny have said it was "very disappointed" given the "amount of time and resources used on this project". But Deputy Charles Parkinson's Committee said Aurigny's proposals were "surprising" to the point that they just couldn't support them:
"Aurigny’s accounts show that these routes operate at a loss of £3m per annum. It was therefore a surprise to the team evaluating the bids under the proposed PSO on the Alderney routes when Aurigny submitted a bid based on a much-reduced schedule operated by only two aircraft. [And] even more surprising, to the PSO team, was that Aurigny wanted a subsidy greater than the losses currently being incurred in their 4-aircraft operation.
"Under this proposal, the capacity on the Alderney–Southampton route would be virtually halved, and there would be no resilience in the proposed fleet to cover periods when one or both of the aircraft were out of service. The proposed service level fell far short of the specification in the Invitation to Tender (for the PSO contract), and far short of what Alderney requires."
Aurigny would have halved the capacity on its Alderney-Southhampton route.
Although Aurigny also said in its initial statement that it was "sympathetic to the Alderney residents who are yet again left with continued uncertainty as to when this issue will be resolved", it is as yet unclear if they would have been content with these much reduced plans to run flights to their island.
A spokesperson for Economic Development said: "The PSO process would not allow the States of Guernsey to negotiate a reduced service level with one of the bidders. All of the bidders have to be allowed to bid for the same specification of services.
"[We] note that a follow-up meeting was held with all of the bidders with an AOC(one of the qualifying criteria for the tender), so there was a clear opportunity for Aurigny’s representatives to make any comments in relation to their submission that they wished to make at that time.
"The Committee for Economic Development shares the frustration of the people of Alderney that this process did not have a satisfactory outcome, but stands by the people of Alderney in insisting that the winner of the PSO process should provide Alderney with the connectivity that the island needs."
Since ED issued the statement containing details of Aurigny's bid, the airline has put out a holding line while it prepares a response. It says: "Aurigny is disappointed at the timing of this statement so late in the day giving us little opportunity to respond. We are concerned at the level of confidential information disclosed Aurigny will respond further on the PSO outcome in due course."
More to come...
Pictured top: An Aurigny Dornier in Alderney. The airline said things would be business as usual for now.
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