Isle of Man link-up remains on track

Tuesday 22 September 2020

Aurigny is looking into the possibility of relaunching its Isle of Man flights for the October half term.

Direct services between Guernsey and the Isle of Man launched on 22 July, carrying around 5,500 passengers by the end of August.

Some additional flights between the islands were put on during the first couple weeks of September. 

The link came to an end last week and the Isle of Man was not included in Aurigny's expanded winter timetable, which has already been pushed back once due to continuing travel restrictions.

As of yet, no date has been set for the move to Phase 5c, which is needed to make Aurigny's winter timetable viable to operate. 

Pictured: Aurigny has reportedly been in talks about providing more services to the Isle of Man in the future.

In the meantime, the States-owned airline is taking another look at the Isle of Man as a potential short-term destination.

"We are looking into the possibility of half term flights if the air bridge remains," confirmed a spokesperson for the airline. Half term falls between Monday 22 to Friday 30 October for States schools. 

While both islands remained covid-free up until the last scheduled flight in mid-September, both cases currently have three active cases. 

Civil Contingencies Authority Chairman Gavin St Pier has since said that maintaining zero positive cases "was never a pre-requisite of the air bridge". 

Pictured: More than 2,700 people travelled from Guernsey to the Isle of Man during the course of the air bridge.

"When we launched the air bridge in June, we did so because there was significant alignment between our governments’ approaches to managing the risks linked to covid-19," said Deputy St Pier.

"It was not a decision based purely on the fact that at that point neither island had had a confirmed case for several weeks, but rather because we both have very similar measures in place for border controls from other locations, and robust testing and contact tracing capabilities."