Senator Lyndon Farnham made the comments following the issuing of a memo by British Airways to some of its staff, which indicated that the airline might not return to Gatwick after suspending its operations in April and instead run all services from Heathrow.
He added that he was hopeful the Island’s Gatwick link would continue to be operated by easyJet, once airlines began operating again.
The news follows the announcement yesterday that Virgin Atlantic, one of British Airways’ biggest long-haul rivals, was to axe all of its services from Gatwick and cut 3,000 jobs.
Senator Farnham said: ‘Islanders may have seen an announcement by British Airways that they could be pulling out of Gatwick and focusing all of their flights from Heathrow.
‘At first thought, that might have caused some concern, but we do have very strong links with easyJet from Gatwick which we do hope to rebuild again as we come out of this.
‘British Airways see us as a really important, long-standing partner of theirs and I see this as an opportunity.’
He added: ‘If British Airways were to operate solely from Heathrow then I feel very confident that we would see new Heathrow links start up much sooner than had they stayed at Gatwick, so there is some reason to be positive there.’
If BA begins flying from Jersey to Heathrow, it will be the first time the link has operated since 2009, when the now-defunct BMI last plied the route.
And Senator Farnham said that once Jersey’s borders were reopened to non-essential travellers, Jersey’s 14-day self-isolation laws would make normal travel ‘very difficult’.
‘It has been identified that it could present significant risk, if we were to open our borders too soon but when we get to the stage where we can reduce the isolation period, I really want to see our tourism business start up again – obviously in a safe and careful way,’ Senator Farnham said.
