Blue Islands has begun legal proceedings against the States of Guernsey’s regulatory body, the Transport Licensing Authority, naming the other airline as an interested party, because it believes that Waves should have a local air transport licence in order to fly passengers.
Waves has marketed itself as an air taxi service, something which is exempt from needing this type of licence under the law, insisting that it was an ‘on-demand service with flight times requested and booked by the individual traveller’.
However, in its court action, Blue Islands says Waves is not an air taxi because it sells individual seats to customers; has been marketing seats for sale on flights that have no passengers booked on them; and the destination – always either Guernsey or Jersey – is specified by the airline, not the customer.
To qualify for an air taxi exemption a plane should be ‘hired by the customer for the purposes of a journey to a particular destination specified by the customer’.
Blue Islands said in a statement: ‘The central issue is Waves’ lack of a Guernsey air transport licence, in respect of any aircraft being used for the carriage for reward of passengers or cargo on a flight beginning or ending in Guernsey. This is a requirement of the air transport licensing law, with section one being quite explicit about this. Not holding one means Waves’ operations are illegal. For many months, Blue Islands have repeatedly written to the chair of the Transport Licensing Authority, and have not received any adequate response. The decision to call for a judicial review is intended to compel the authority to act to uphold the law it is meant to enforce and protect the travelling public from an operator acting outside of the rules. If Blue Islands started operating a daily service on any Aurigny route under the claim of being an air taxi, the TLA would step in and stop it. That is exactly what should have happened here.’
Blue Islands said it was happy to compete on the route, but that it must be on a ‘level playing field’.
When approached in November by the Guernsey Press about what consideration it had given to whether Waves should be exempt and why it had not required a licence given how it had operated since beginning commercial flights on 6 November, the TLA said it had been asked to consider certain matters regarding the services offered by Waves, but could not comment further.
After Friday’s proceedings, the TLA said: ‘The matter is now before the court and the TLA cannot comment at this time’.
Waves, meanwhile, has said that it does not operate as a scheduled airline, and therefore does not offer timetables or schedules for inter-island flights.
‘Currently, passengers wishing to book a flight with Waves must call or email the customer service team and request the destination, date and time they wish to travel,’ it said in mid-November.
