THE fact that in a world which is looking increasing unstable with every passing day, you need to build productive allegiances wherever you can find them, is self-evident.
As is often cited on these pages, in Jersey terms, that means looking a few miles to the northwest, and investigating how working together across the Channel Islands may remove duplication, increase our ‘buying-power’ and generally be a much more efficient way of administering ourselves.
So far so good. Local businesses do it all the time, many have offices in both islands, making use of the clear economies of scale provided by a larger customer-base; and the flexibility to adapt to slightly different ways of working, and regulatory regimes which are similar but different.
There are also examples where it has worked on a pan-CI government policy level too; but often, that is where we hit a block in the road, or in this particular case, the skies.
JEP readers will perhaps remember the public debate over ‘open skies’, an example of which was Blue Islands (or Le Cocq’s AirLink as it was then), wanting to offer competitive services on the prime Jersey/Guernsey route with the then incumbent, Aurigny.
Jersey still has an ‘open skies’ policy, whereas Guernsey licences its routes in a different way; and this weekend we learnt that while Aurigny (which is now owned by the States of Guernsey) was being allowed to fly services to Jersey, a prospective competitor in Loganair, was going to be refused.
Loganair, remember, has been supported by the Jersey authorities to help it to maintain services following the sudden demise of Blue Islands in November.
Quite how this refusal from Guernsey will be seen by them, and what it means for their future investment in the islands, is an open question.
Air routes have often been an exemplar of the benefits to the consumer of competition, and to be fair to Aurigny, they immediately launched competitive services on this key local route, once Blue Islands was no longer in the air.
If Jersey and Guernsey are to take different approaches on travel policy at a government level – and the recent examples in the air and at sea illustrate that is clearly the case – it really does make greater inter-island cooperation a struggle, before it has properly got off the ground.
Instead, the governments need to make it easier, not harder; they need to set the tone, and provide the framework, allowing businesses such as Loganair and Aurigny the freedom to do the rest.
