Helicopter leased by Air Alderney

Wednesday 14 February 2018

Air Alderney has leased a helicopter and crew from a company in Holland, as it has gained its first air route licences.

The new airline has been issued with a route licence to carry freight and passengers to and from Jersey.

But, subject to a decision under consideration by the Guernsey Air Transport Licensing Board, they have only been granted a licence to carry freight from Alderney to and from Guernsey - not a passenger licence.

The new airline said it wanted to thank those who had written to the Guernsey Licensing Board lobbying for its licenses, and continued to keep its fingers crossed. 

"We are one step further by gaining some of our route licences however still have a few more steps to confirm before being able to publish our timetable and fares," an airline spokesperson said.

"We can however confirm that we will be commencing with our Jersey and Cherbourg routes of which we will be able to advise operation dates very soon. We are still working towards obtaining our own AOC with 2-REG however during our application process we were advised that the CAA would no longer issue an Air Transport Licence to new AOC’s issued by the 2-REG. In turn this would mean that we would not be able to fly to the UK or France should we obtain our AOC with 2-REG presently."

The airline has also looked at alternative means to enable its operations to commence as soon as possible.

The new leased helicopter will be relocated to Alderney as soon as possible, and it will be used for transport, and freight, along with it being able to operate a medivac service if the requirements can be met.

Additionally, an agreement has been reached with Ben Air to register its BN-2T Islander aircraft with their Danish AOC.

"The above has not deterred us from obtaining our own AOC with 2-REG and we are hopeful that the CAA and DFT find a resolve to this issue soon at which point we would be operating all our routes under Air Alderney’s own AOC."