“WE’RE very pleased with how things have gone since we arrived in Jersey,” said Loganair chief executive Luke Farajallah.
The Scottish airline began serving Islanders in November at short notice, when Blue Islands announced its decision to cease trading and enter liquidation.
More than 50 staff who were employed by the latter carrier were picked up by Loganair as it began establishing its operations here.
“That was a great achievement,” said Mr Farajallah.
“We’re delighted to have them on board. Bringing people – who overnight have lost their jobs – back into the world of employment, a new airline, is a great thing to do.”
He stressed that the end of Blue Islands “did not come because of the people behind it”.
“This is a set of circumstances mainly related to their size and shape as a business, not having the scale, not having the clean balance sheet, not having the financial freedom that we’ve got,” he said.
“When you have a bad run – and they did – of technical problems, it can quickly accumulate and become overwhelming.”
While Loganair is not grappling with the same structural pressures that Blue Islands was, its entry into the market has not been without challenge.
At the start of this year, it emerged that Guernsey’s Transport Licensing Authority had provisionally rejected two applications from Loganair – for services between Guernsey and Jersey as well as Guernsey and Southampton – having concluded that “strong competition on these routes would likely lead to it being unviable for all operators in the longer term”.
An application to operate an inter-island passenger and cargo service put forward by Aurigny, which is wholly owned by the States of Guernsey, was approved.
Loganair would have had an opportunity to respond before a final decision was reached, but chose to withdraw from the process – stating that it would focus on its Jersey operations.
Mr Farajallah said: “We would be delighted to serve all parts of the Channel Islands, including Guernsey, and we’ve had some really positive conversations with the Government of Guernsey over the last few months.
“The general flow now is that we’re over that quite difficult moment when we entered the market in Jersey. Everything has calmed down and now we can look [to] demonstrate our value to the people of Jersey.”
Mr Farajallah added that this would “hopefully” then be something Sarnian politicians “would like us to offer to the people of Guernsey going forwards”.
But, noting Aurigny’s operations on key routes, he explained that: “I can’t see Loganair entering the Guernsey market in full force without thinking one or more of those routes would be available to us”.
“We’re very happy at the moment to build and consolidate in Jersey and we hope in time that the Guernsey situation will be resolved to the point that we can also work and fly in that market.”
Loganair has continued to expand its presence, having announced a number of new routes – including direct flights to Norwich, East Midlands, Paris and Bordeaux.
The launch of the services comes amid wider efforts from Ports of Jersey, Visit Jersey and the government to encourage bolstered air connectivity.
At the start of last year, Economic Development Minister Kirsten Morel revealed that up to £2m would be mobilised via the Better Business Support Package over 2025 and 2026 to support route development.
Asked if there were any particular destinations that he would like to see, or airports that the Scottish carrier was currently speaking to, Mr Farajallah said: “Many, but we can’t reveal who they are at this point in time”.
But he stressed that Islanders “will have a strong portfolio of destinations offered by Loganair”.
“Jersey is also a spectacular inbound destination, so what we would like to do is to bring more people to Jersey – which is an absolute key part of any tourism strategy,” he continued.
“This is about marketing Jersey, UK-wide and Europe-wide. So wherever we fly from, we’d like to bring people to Jersey. And the third part of that is outside of the scheduled market, we’re also now dipping our toes into the charter market.
“There are some winter and summer charters that we’ve committed to, which will complement the scheduled strategy and timetable that’s already on sale. So we’re really digging in in Jersey.”
Earlier this month, Ports of Jersey highlighted a 2.2% rise in the number of passengers who travelled through Jersey Airport during the first quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2025, describing this as a “very encouraging” start to 2026.
Mr Farajallah said: “Our experience is that if you truly offer reliable, dependable, resilient connectivity, people will will trust you.
“And they will give you a chance again, even if they’ve had a bad experience previously, which they may have done. But with Loganair, they’ve got a lot more resilience, a lot more scale and a lot more in the way of options if something were to happen.
“We feel we’re quietly delivering the promise that we entered the market on. Ultimately, it will be the people who tell us whether or not we’re delivering, but I feel confident at this point in time that we’re moving along the right lanes and getting ourselves established in the right way.”
However, Mr Farajallah also acknowledged the geopolitical headwinds affecting the aviation sector – including the huge rise in fuel costs triggered by the conflict in the Middle East.
He said Loganair had put on “a small surcharge” of four pounds per ticket to try and mitigate the impact.
“The reason we’ve done that is because, we’re not looking to profit from this in any sense, but we can’t be exposed – otherwise all that will happen is air fares will just get dearer and dearer and we don’t want that to happen.”
Despite such headwinds, Mr Farajallah described Loganair as being in “a reasonably good position”.
“I’m certainly not raising any alarm or hitting the panic button. Some airlines are cutting back in capacity – we haven’t done that.
“I’m naturally a more cautious person and I don’t like knee-jerk reactions, so we’re just going to wait to see a little bit how this pans out.”
And he maintained that the airline was trying to keep airfares “as low as we can”.
“What we want to offer is year-round connectivity. We’re not a seasonal operator that wants to come in and drop in and just drop out again when we feel that the demand is lower.
“We want to be the base carrier of Jersey, year in, year out, with solid, reliable, dependable, resilient routes. And therefore there is a cost to that.”
