RE: Move To Safeguard Regional

WOW! A former Aurigny Saab 340 pilot! Did you enjoy your experience with them?

Anyway, I am not sure if I agree with you that the Islands will never get their airlinks back to LHR. Though I know its a long way off in us ever getting it back there will always be a chance if opportunities such as the one in the original topic come about. If the government can recognised the importance of these lifeline routes and make sure our concerns are fully represented in the review of current EU regulations, then I would hope that something could come about.
The main reason it will be hard for the Islands’ to regain flights is because of the allocation of slots and the fact that no one knows who owns the slots, the government or airlines? Only a very few slots are surrendered by airlines, however, this is where the EU comes in to affect.

Over the years many articles have come up in the local media about possible ways of reinstating the lost airlinks to LHR, for example, bmi decreasing the frequency of some of its smaller operations into LHR such as Teeside and using the slots on flights from Jersey and also Guernsey. Also the new smaller runway at LHR which would be used for more regional orientated aircraft such as the BAe 146 and 737 which would guarantee slots at LHR for us, though this is not supposed to be ready by 2011 if it even gets the go ahead. So in my opinion this is the only good chance we will have in a long time of getting the slots back.

What needs to be done as well is to get flights to other major European hub airports such as Paris CDG, Amsterdam, Zurich and others because they are just as good as Heathrow. Also it would be great propaganda for airlines such as AF and KL (and bad for BA) note that the once “world’s favourite airline” is shunned at UK provincial airports. KLM is doing it in UK airports, so for the Islands it should happen to. I would love to see the loads on the JER and GCI flights to Zurich with Swiss as I would think that they are popular for people wanting to connect on to International flights.

Though some of my facts and information may not be totally correct I am a believer that one day we could see flights back to Heathrow, maybe not tomorrow but one day. It would also be nice to see some other airline recognising our need for links to major International airports, though maybe with the size and population it would not be viable.