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Deputy Peter Roffey has said “it would be commercially inappropriate and not in the interests of the States” to publicly divulge financial estimates for the options to upgrade Alderney’s airport and runway before the tender process has been completed.
Deputy Simon Vermeulen had asked the President of the States’ Trading and Supervisory Board (STSB) “if an itemized budget” has been prepared for the proposals to extend Alderney’s runway including “the terminal, fire provision, baggage operations, lighting, perimeter fencing”.
Some have argued that the price of completely upgrading Alderney’s airport facilities could cost upwards of £50 million.
Deputy Roffey said he would not disclose the cost “at this stage of the capital investment process,"but did confirm “costings to a level of detail required for a project at this point in the process have been carried out… to inform the options appraisal in the Outline Business Case”.
“The Alderney Runway project is being progressed per the Government Work Plan and is currently going through the States of Guernsey approved process for Capital Projects,” said Deputy Roffey.
He also confirmed that the STSB hopes to seek tenders for all three options of the Alderney runway project to identify the preferred option “subject to the approval of the Policy & Resources Committee”.
You can read about the three options proposed for Alderney airport HERE.
Pictured: The STSB has political oversight for the Bailiwick's ports and Aurigny, Deputy Peter Roffey is the President.
These discussions are happening simultaneously with questions about the future of Guernsey’s airport. A policy letter will be brought before the States of Guernsey later this year which could ask the Assembly to extend the runway to 1,700 meters.
Regarding this, Deputy Vermeulen also questioned “the constraints of the current runway to operating the Embraer Jet fully loaded”.
Deputy Roffey said that whilst the range of the jet “is dependent on the atmospheric conditions at the time of travel" Aurigny reduce the passenger number by one person after every three minutes where the flight time is longer than one and a quarter hour.
He said all 122 seats can be sold on a route such as Guernsey to Manchester, “thereafter, for each additional three minutes of scheduled flying time, the seats available for sale have to be reduced by one”.
Therefore, a flight on the jet lasting two and a quarter hours would only have 102 seats sold.
Pictured (top) (left to right): Deputies Charles Parkinson, Peter Roffey and Nick Moakes; members of the STSB.
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