Alderney still waiting for PSO answers

Friday 17 January 2020

The States of Alderney are "bitterly disappointed" at Guernsey's States' failure to consult with or inform them when debate will take place, on the island's flight links contract.

Policy and Finance Committee chairman James Dent was quizzed by Alex Snowdon at this month's States Meeting on where the PSO process was up to and when it would be debated in the States of Deliberation.

Mr Dent said: "As Chairman of Policy and Finance I have no more insight into where on earth the PSO process has got to than he does as an Alderney Representative in the States of Guernsey. Repeated requests have been made, without success, to the States of Guernsey for information, for opportunities to be consulted, or even just an idea of decision timescales.

Pictured: James Dent is pushing for answers on Aurigny's air links. 

Mr Dent has written to Deputy Gavin St Pier, President of P&R on two occasions and called him once offering to enter into discussions over the options available – to no avail.

"The President of P&R is saying little other than that there will be a debate when P&R have reached a recommendation that they can put to the States of Alderney.

"We in Alderney are, on the other hand, bitterly disappointed that Guernsey’s Policy and Resources Committee have not taken up our offer to discuss the options."

The situation is exacerbated by Aurigny's recently published reduced summer schedule which results in a loss of 4,400 seats on the direct Southampton service.

From the end of March the service will be predicated on having one Dornier in use and one kept for use as a backup, and one crew working.

It means a total of only two Southampton flights per day, even during Alderney Week – which at one time saw 16 crossings per day. In addition outward flights have been made later and incoming flights earlier – shortening the window time for medical and business day trips.

Aurigny says this is because they can't invest in re-winging Dornier G-Longis until they know whether they have won the PSO contract and what funding, if any, will be available for the Southampton route.

Auringy has added 4,200 extra seats from Alderney to Guernsey. Mr Dent said the States of Alderney had lobbied for a continuation of the 2018 service – however, the Memorandum of Understanding guaranteeing a minimum level of service had expired at the end of 2019, leaving them with little leverage.

"While this reorientation is in itself disappointing, our greatest worry centers on the resilience of any Aurigny operation, particularly when one of the only two aircraft they may have could be absent for servicing."

Alderney Rep Steve Roberts insisted the arrangement would "just not work".

"There are going not infrequent periods of scheduled maintenance on each plane which mean there will be no back up when unscheduled maintenance is needed, or there's a medivac and no capacity to put on extra flights after bad weather.

"Aurigny has history of going tech far too often so it's not going to work."

The States of Alderney is now "exploring options" for maintaining both the resilience of the island's air links and services on offer but Mr Dent would not elaborate on what they were.

"There are a number of measures we are taking to determine whether the hold-ups within P&R are for legitimate or illegitimate reasons and there are a number of good reasons to pursue, separately, the restitution of the 2019 timetable and a final outcome for the PSO."

Pictured: States of Alderney President William Tate oversaw this week's meeting. 

James Dent was again voted in as chairman of Alderney's Policy and Finance Committee at this month's States Meeting.

The existing chairmen of the General Services and Building and Development Control Committee also stood unchallenged for the positions at the January States Meeting.

James Dent was proposed by Annie Burgess and was duly elected to P&F while Graham McKinley and Mike Dean will continue to head up GSC and BDCC.

All 10 Alderney States Members will again constitute P&F. The only changes to membership of the committees was in the BDCC where David Earl stepped down and Annie Burgess stepped up.

Only David Earl and Louis Jean – absent from this week's meeting for personal reasons – did not seek membership of either the BDCC or GSC.

Mr Earl chaired the Finance Committee last year. P&F will select its members and chairman at its first meeting.

As is traditional, the Plebiscite election of Alex Snowdon and Steve Roberts as Alderney Representatives to the States of Deliberation was ratified by the States.

Mr Dent said he looked forward to tackling on-going challenges and progressing new initiatives.

"I am very honoured to have re-elected as Chairman of P&F," he said.

"The last three years have brought many challenges and, this year, we can expect even more. I would like to build on relations already established and progress some of the things we have started but not yet been able to complete. The obvious challenges centre on our relationship with Guernsey, but there are other things possibly less talked about that are also in the pipeline - two examples would be a new Partnership Law and Employment Legislation. There is also, of course, the emerging Green agenda."

James Dent was voted in as Vice President to the States of Alderney.