Aurigny Update.

Sad to see TN depart. She was I believe the last ex CityFlyer ATR that regularly still visited LGW. I had the privilege of working on her from new.
I don’t know if BA still bring some of the ex CityFlyer RJ100’s in to LGW. If not all the links with the old CityFlyer are now gone.
Regarding the rearward facing seats this isn’t unusual. We had an old ATR42 with these fitted taking capacity up to 50 rather than 48. If there were two cabin crew on board one would use the FD jump seat if it was full.

Many thanks Jethro

Adam

G-BWDA WFU 31 Mar

G-BXTN WFU 07 Mar –
Dep Guernsey for Morocco 23 Apr
Re-regd F- 08 May
Onward to Royal Air Moroc Express

The reason for the delay of the new ATRs, is the company who make the seats are late in deliverying the seats for the new ATRs.
Two of the series 200s will leave the company at some time this year possible G-BWDA and G-BXTN

Can anyone confirm that both G-BWDA and G-BXTN have now been WFU by Aurigny? Jethro’s seems to indicate that they have, though clarification would be appreciated, thank you.

Adam

Aurigny’s second new toy G-VZON (another reggie related to Guernsey locations etc) flew their GR601 service LGW-GCI yesterday morning, and Captain’s pre-take off address included confirmation that it had entered service the day before.

Paul F

Good, so should guarantee that I get a new a/c on my trip there and back on Thurs/Fri.

G-VZON now in service too

Aurigny’s second new toy G-VZON (another reggie related to Guernsey locations etc) flew their GR601 service LGW-GCI yesterday morning, and Captain’s pre-take off address included confirmation that it had entered service the day before.

Paul F

No, STN is a new route from Jersey but they’ve operated from Guernsey for some time.

Thanks for clarifying.

Enjoy!

Well, G-COBO has just pulled up and looks as though it will be my return aircraft this evening, so that is something at least!

Says new route at the top of the thread… and I’ve never seen one.

You could be right though.

No, STN is a new route from Jersey but they’ve operated from Guernsey for some time.

Aurigny have been flying the ATR to STN for years.

1L.

Says new route at the top of the thread… and I’ve never seen one.

You could be right though.

Still nice to see something new overhead.

Aurigny have been flying the ATR to STN for years.

1L.

I guess MAN will only get new once the delivery of the second aircraft is made.

G-COBO operated GR678 on 9th March.

Saw an Aurigny ATR climbing out of STN earlier. Got a shot of it, but have no idea whether it’s one of the new 500s. Still nice to see something new overhead. 😀

rdc1000 – yes, interior trim is nice and clean, bright and airy, unlike the slightly shabby and tired looking ‘BWDA, ‘BWDB and ‘BXTN. Also decidely less vibration and noise etc on engine start up, and far less of a “thump” when gear was retracted or lowered. Oh, and a very obvious “new car” type smell. Sorry to say yesterday’s 17:15 GCI-MAN service was still being operated by the older ‘planes (as was my GR601 flight out to GCI on Monday morning 🙁 )

Yep and it was still an older plane when I flew down yesterday and expect it will be on my return north tomorrow night :-(. I guess MAN will only get new once the delivery of the second aircraft is made.

G-COBO has entered service

Shiny new ATR72 G-COBO (very 😎 choice of registration as Cobo is one of the nice(r) beaches on Guernsey) was doing the LGW-GCI runs yesterday.

It operated the outbound GR601 servcie as a colleague flew out to Gsy on it, and says she thought the crew said that was only it’s second trip – so it may have kicked off on the GCI-LGW “red eye” service yesterday morning?

It also operated the GR606 service that brought us back to LGW last night :cool:, (seats 14A and 14C), so I assume it had been shuttling to and fro on the interim GCI-LGW-GCI services too. During pre-flight chat the Captain did welcome aboard “..this brand new ATR72 G-COBO..”, so he seemed fairly pleased to be up at the sharp end too. For a small airline like Aurigny I guess the introduction of a brand new aircraft is far more of a major event than it is for BA or Squeezyjet where planes are ‘ten a penny’.

rdc1000 – yes, interior trim is nice and clean, bright and airy, unlike the slightly shabby and tired looking ‘BWDA, ‘BWDB and ‘BXTN. Also decidely less vibration and noise etc on engine start up, and far less of a “thump” when gear was retracted or lowered. Oh, and a very obvious “new car” type smell. Sorry to say yesterday’s 17:15 GCI-MAN service was still being operated by the older ‘planes (as was my GR601 flight out to GCI on Monday morning 🙁 )

Aboard ‘COBO there are two full extra rows of seats, plus an interesting addition of two rear-facing seats on the front right cabin bulkhead (Seats 1D and 1F I assume?) next to the central “stowable” rear-facing cabin crew seat. Those two new seats face directly at seats (2?)D and F in the first full width row. I initially thought they perhaps foldable jump seats, but saw the cabin crew offer papers and refreshements to a passenger sitting in them, so I guess they are full revenue-earning seats? Thus it seems the new planes have ten more passenger seats.

Trim-wise, the seats are more rounded han before, set at an identical seat pitch (I suspect), and I wasn’t sure they were covered in “real” leather any more. They also have a neat new fold-down cup holder set in the underside of the seat-tray. In theory it means you need not open the seat tray if you only have a (still complimentary if soft) drink – though a few pasengers around me tried this and it seem the disposable cups currently used by Aurigny don’t really fit in the new holders (:rolleyes:), so they barely sit in them, meaning the cups look very unsteady as they are perched very high in the holder, and would be very easy to dislodge/spill all over your knees.

A definite improvmeent over the older aircraft, and hopefully I will get to see more of ‘COBO as I have now re-started my regular weekly overnight trips to GCI after a three month gap.

On the flight back to Gatwick I noticed that The Guernsey Press newspaper last night was reporting a sizeable drop in passenger arrivals in Gsy in Jan/Feb ’09 – something like 4000 down (IIRC) over the two months. Might be a knock-on effect of the credit-crunch (i..e less bankers travelling to many financial institutions on the island), or it might simply be due to the fact the Flybe have now completely stopped using BAe146s on the LGW-GCI route, thus cutting seat availibility. Maybe the extra Aurigny seats on the new ‘planes, plus tehir introduction of an extra GCI-LGW-GCI round trip every weekday will start to rebuild passenger numbers.

Oh, and yes I did have my camera with me yesterday, but time was very tight and so no I didn’t have chance to grab any photos of the gleaming ‘factory-fresh’ G-COBO 😡

No doubt one of the Gatwick regulars will soon capture her earning her pay and post a piccie or two. Come on chaps, you’re slacking!!!!!

Paul F (most often to be found on the historic thread, as civils are usually as boring as buses ! ;))

Well you have to stand as the seats haven’t been delivered yet!:diablo:

Two of the series 200s will leave the company at some time this year

I stand corrected.

1L.

The reason for the delay of the new ATRs, is the company who make the seats are late in deliverying the seats for the new ATRs.
Two of the series 200s will leave the company at some time this year possible G-BWDA and G-BXTN

The last Short 360, G-BPFN, was transferred to the registration G-GPBV and is now owned by a danish company. Not sure what they use it for though.[/QUOTE]

Apparently It’s been seen at Inverness recently and will be doing Mail flights for Highland Airways to the islands

Cheers, Huw:)