After Blue Islands’ turbulent descent into abruptly ceasing all flights late on Friday night, this morning attention is turning to the events which led up to it.
Firstly, it’s worth restating that finding out what happened is important – transport links are the lifeblood of any island community, and as we have discovered through the ferry saga, the detail of what happens to them really matters.
So what do we know? We know that the government was supporting Blue Islands to the tune of many millions of pounds – much of that was paid to keep essential services going during Covid, and few would seriously question the principle of that.
But that was five years ago, and the lack of repayments since, and the way in which ongoing performance has been monitored, have both been questioned by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
And it is understood that further payments were made by the government to Blue Islands much more recently. A final ministerial decision that enough was enough, seems to be what led to the airline abruptly grounding its fleet late on Friday.
We also know that detailed planning and preparation for Blue Islands ceasing operations and being replaced by Loganair just a few hours later, must clearly have happened.
While obviously welcome, it does cast a different light on recent events – were more payments made to Blue Islands as part of a last-ditch rescue bid which ultimately failed? Or were they more about buying time for Loganair to be ready to operate key routes? What alternatives to providing direct financial support to Blue Islands were on the table? And why was the end so messy on Friday night, seemingly coming as a total shock to Blue Islands senior management, staff and thousands of local customers.
Somewhere, a part of the plan failed, and that has left staff with an awful weekend of worry about their futures, and thousands of passengers scrambling to get tickets refunded.
It is to be hoped that answers to those questions emerge in the coming days. They are important because of the amount of public money involved. But we also mustn’t lose sight of the fact that the island is now supported by a larger regional carrier, in a business which relies on scale; and combined with the return of Aurigny to our local skies, it brings back competition to the key Jersey/Guernsey air route.
A difficult transition to a new airline has been achieved, albeit with some considerable turbulence along the way.
