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Aurigny's CEO has praised his staff - describing them as the airline's strength following a challenging six months for the company.
Nico Bezuidenhout has described this year as "utterly disappointing" after technical problems and foggy weather destroyed the airline's reputation for reliability in February.
What followed was months of uncertainty for passengers with ongoing delays and cancellations.
In an exclusive sit down interview with Express, Mr Bezuidenhout reflected on the airline's failures this year and how he and others have handled its challenges.
When asked to describe Aurigny's strengths he had no hesitation in praising his staff.
Pictured: Aurigny's CEO Nico Bezuidenhout talked Express through the challenges Aurigny has faced this year in an exclusive one-on-one interview.
"Without a doubt, the passion and commitment that the employees have for the passengers," is Aurigny's strength he said.
"This is truly unique, as I've never experienced that...because we such a small community, when you talk about a passenger, it's not some unknown, distant, entity. It is more likely than not somebody's brother, sister, uncle, neighbour, and that means that the employees relate very differently to the passengers than you would normally have in bigger jurisdictions, and that is a unique strength."
Having worked in larger jurisdictions previously, Mr Bezuidenhout was initially unaware of exactly how close an interest members of the public take in Aurigny's day-to-day business when he first arrived in Guernsey four years ago.
He is now well aware of the scrutiny he is under from everyone locally, having faced criticism this year for Aurigny's performance.
He has been prepared to take that criticism but he does feel protective of his staff who have also been at the brunt of it this year.
"In the first instance, we all take it very personally. I take it personally from the standpoint that I feel that I should protect my employees, and every employee has got a link to this island and that runs deeper than most care to admit. So we do take it personally, but it's all about them going every step of the way to try and resolve the matters.
"Now, sometimes we fail, often we fail. Sometimes we fail to communicate accurately, or sometimes of late, we potentially over communicate. We came in for some flak in the last couple of days for communicating a five minute delay on flight changes. It's difficult to find out where exactly is the line? I think that in the coming months, we'd probably err on over communicating rather than under communicating.
"But some of the criticism has been valid and legitimate, and we fully accept that our punctuality rate this year - where it normally is 4-8% above the UK average - this year at times we've been 4%/5% been below the UK average, and that simply isn't acceptable."
Pictured: Aurigny operates lifeline links between Guernsey, Alderney, and the UK, as well as numerous other routes.
When showing Express around the offices and hangar where Aurigny's administrative and engineering staff work, it became apparent that some of the employees have been working for the airline for a very long time.
The level of experience and knowledge these staff have is palpable and they are sharing that insight with newer members of staff who have joined the airline as recently as last month.
Mr Bezuidenhout said while employee loyalty is not rare in aviation it's another area where Aurigny is "exceptional".
Again, he said part of that comes down to a determination by his employees to ensure their own loved ones get home.
"We are the airline that will bring you home. We are the airline that will allow you to move flights forward, and flight forwarding, for example, if we need to get you home, we are the airline that's going to make sure that you get home.
"If something is wrong on our aircraft, and you can't get home from East Midlands, we're going to put you on a bus to get you home from Birmingham. It is all about getting the islanders home, and that sometimes makes us take decisions that we end up living to regret.
"A couple of months ago, we had a flight coming into Guernsey that was very late. If we didn't have that commitment to bring islanders home, we probably wouldn't have taken off originally coming into Guernsey, we would have just potentially cancelled the flight and let that be that. But because we've got this absolute desire, and because we also know that tomorrow morning, I have to have aircraft in place, and there's another bunch of passengers that will be let down if we don't get this mission completed, we do go out of our way.
"Now, where we do absolutely draw the line without any doubt is when there's any safety risks or concerns. (Last weekend) for example, there was adverse weather on the south coast of England that would have posed risk if we tried to fly through that weather. And in that case, we just will not do that. That is where we will not compromise."
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