I do get the impression that Noel Hayes sees this as an excuse to rock the establishment if you will rather than actually offer a reliable passenger service, which leaves a lot to be desired if you look at the changes to the schedule in the last few months. He seems to place quite a bit of emphasis on competition to Aurigny yet doesn’t seem to answer the questions whether there would be another passengers to warrant competition or if it would be a temporary route if it were not to succeed.

But anyhow, I welcome a bit of competition on the route. Just an example, some of my family came over from Ireland yesterday, they flew JetMagic to Jersey and then this morning they caught an inter island flight to Guernsey. The Cork flight was £100 return with the flight to Guernsey being around £70 return for one person, rather expensive don’t you think? If Le Cocqs can bring these prices down then the inter island flights could probably see an extra generation of passenger numbers, which have been on the decline because you have in direct competition with the ferry on the route.

I question Aurigny’s and the States attitudes towards letting Le Cocqs on the route. It would damage the airline’s service on the route? I quite doubt this. The Islander aircraft only seats 10 passengers, Aurigny have cut up to half of the inter island services this year, even with the addition of two Shorts it doesn’t seem as if there would be saturation of seats to me. The Islander has been operated successfully between Jersey and Alderney and between the islands and Bournemouth so it won’t be economical on inter island? This doesn’t add up to me considering that Aurigny used to operate the aircraft themselves.
I think to be honest it is just the disagreement of the States to see their airline receive competition (something they are not used to) and Aurigny obviously realising this, Mr Hayes and Mr Hart are not exactly the best of friends now are they!

But it will be good to see Le Cocqs get the route. I was up Guernsey airport yesterday and their Bournemouth flight went off full so they seem to be quite successful. Lets just hope they are not expanding too quickly, you wonder where they will get their aircraft.