The History Of Guernsey’s Airline Aurigny

While many of our readers will have never heard of Aurigny or the island of Guernsey where it is based, we thought that now might be a good time to look at the history of Guernsey’s Aurigny airline. Before we get into the airline and how it came to be, it is important to know where Guernsey is and why having an airline is important.

Guernsey is an island in the English Channel located off the coast of Normandy, France. Together with the other Channel Islands, Jersey, Alderney, Sark, Herm, Brechou, Jethou, and Lihou, it was part of the medieval Duchy of Normandy. King John lost his French lands to Philip II of France in 1204 but managed to hold on to the Channel Islands. Despite only having a land area of  65 km2 (25 sq mi), Guernsey has a thriving population of around 63,000.

The Germans occupied Guernsey

Despite being much closer to France than England, Guernsey has remained staunchly English and was occupied by the German Army during the Second World War. Following the war, air service between the British Crown Dependency the British mainland was started by British European Airways (BEA). Jersey Airlines later took over the route, followed by British United Airways (BUA). After BUA gave up on the route, Aurigny Air Services was founded by Sir Derrick Bailey and started operations on 1 March 1968. Starting life flying Britten-Norman Islander aircraft, Aurigny developed a network linking Guernsey to England and France and the other islands in the archipelago.

Based at Guernsey Airport (GCI), the name is derived from the Norman world for Alderney, an island close to Guernsey. In 1977 Aurigny became the first airline to ban smoking and is the United Kingdom’s second-oldest regional airline after Scotland’s Loganair.

Aurigny was nationalized in 2003

While struggling to make money, Aurigny was eventually nationalized by the States of Guernsey in 2003 and continued to grow by flying to more destinations in the United Kingdom. In July 2010 fellow Channel Island carrier based in Jersey Blue Islands tried to buy the airline, but Guernseys Treasury and Resources would not approve the deal.

Mark Darby joined the airline as its CEO in 2013 and, after six months at the helm, initiated an eight-week trial of the Dornier 228 as a replacement for the airlinesTrislander fleet. The successful trial led to the purchase of four aircraft from the German manufacturer. When Flybe announced that it was dropping its London Gatwick flight to Guernsey in 2014, Aurigny ordered an Embraer 195 for extra capacity and was now the sole operator on the route.

Aurigny has five aircraft

After winning countless awards for its service, Aurigny is still flying today and has, according to aviation enthusiast website Planespotters.net a fleet made of the following aircraft.

• Four ATR 72s with an average age of 3.8 years
• One  ERJ-195 that is 6.7-years-old

As you can see from the Aurigny route map, the airline currently flies to 13 destinations, of which most are in the United Kingdom.

Have you ever flown with Aurigny? If so, we would love to hear what you think about them in the comments.