[DMreaderNOT]

A colleague who was flying back with Aurigny this week called me to say that his train was delayed and that he was really going to be pushing it to make the airport on time. I called Aurigny locally on the off chance that it might help, and they referred me to the Gatwick handling staff. An extremely helpful lady told me to tell my colleague to go straight to the front of the queue when he got to the airport, and that she would give the check-in staff his details so that everybody knew what was going on, and said that they wouldn't close the check-in until the very last minute.

He made it with literally a minute to spare and wouldn't have done so if it hadn't been for their (on this occasion) excellent customer service. Can you imagine getting the same service with Flybe??? Or indeed Blue Islands?

This is one of the reasons that we invariably use Aurigny whenever we can now, unless the difference in fare is for some reason very significant. Support your local airline!!!!!!!

[yellowhat]

A small group of us were running late a couple of months ago for an Aurigny flight. We arrived at LGW as the flight closed. The man on the desk re-opened the flight for us, checked our bag in and was really nice about it.

We made the flight with seconds to spare. . . .brilliant. Can't fault them for that one bit.

[yellowhat]

So Blue Islands are selling (yes selling and not scrapping) their Tri's. Therefore all the pilots have been told that they have no jobs after they are sold (start of December).

Happy Christmas

[bigchang]

what????how many is that?

[yellowhat]

Well there are a fair amount of pilots, I dont know the exact amount. However most of them are not local, they have flats on a lease and cant just up-and-go. Rent to pay, cars they have bought etc etc

[Jeremy]

Well I hope BI give those pilots a good pay off then, so they can at least try and sort out the mess they've been left in. I read something in the press I think a little while back saying BI were selling off their trislanders as the customers thought they were too 'noisy'. What utter tosh! What next? Aurigny to do the same? I think this smacks of something more like "were not allowed to fly to Southampton from Alderney, so we'll throw our toys out of pram" When I fly to Alderney, always jump on a trislander, whether its Aurigny or BI. They aren't that bloody noisy!

[Gorilla]

Why would they get a payoff? Nothing legally they need to pay apart from the Notice period as stipulated in their contract, as others in this group have found out recently...

[yellowhat]

the Blue Islands staff got £100 as a goodwill gesture. . . .

[DMreaderNOT]

mooms, on 24 November 2011 - 09:54 AM, said:

the Blue Islands staff got £100 as a goodwill gesture. . . .

Well let's face it, poor old Derek is down to his last hundred million or two, we can't expect him to worry about issues such as staff welfare can we?

If Aurigny would have been sold to this guy it would have been a total, absolute disaster. His loyalty to Guernsey was clearly demonstrated when he threatened to move his business away due to the LVCR changes.

[BigSi]

DMreaderNOT, on 24 November 2011 - 10:13 AM, said:

His loyalty to Guernsey was clearly demonstrated when he threatened to move his business away due to the LVCR changes.

Fancy that. Anyone would think he was in business for the money!!

[Gorilla]

Isn't part of being in business treating your staff in a responsibler manner?

DM ReaderNot, I am starting to worry as you appear to be speaking a lot of sense.

[DMreaderNOT]

Gorilla, on 24 November 2011 - 11:58 AM, said:

Isn't part of being in business treating your staff in a responsibler manner?

DM ReaderNot, I am starting to worry as you appear to be speaking a lot of sense.

Ha ha, what are you implying???????

I do appreciate how business works BigSi, I run one myself as it happens. I'm sure that we could make more money by employing staff to work remotely in India, Mauritius etc, but funnily enough we prefer to employ local people and keep the money within the Guernsey economy. We also make sure that staff get a fair chunk of any profits before the shareholders get any dividends. Does that make us stupid? Quite probably in your eyes as we are not maximising the returns to the shareholders in the same way that someone like DC would most likely do. What we do have however is a company that has happy, well rewarded staff, who are prepared to muck in and work extra hours when required, cover for each other when someone's ill or on holiday, and generally feel that they are a valued member of the team. I wonder how many Blue Islands employees feel the same?

[bigchang]

That used to be the same down here until july 2010 we where like a family down here and a happy team which obviously the costumers noticed too

Isn't one responsibility of an employer to provide a safe and healthy enviroment for the staff to work in?i don't call a gas chamber safe and healthy,and before anyone makes any excuses for dc, that he couldn't have known,i don't care as he is the chairman of the company and in my opinion responsible as *poo* sticks at the top.

[bigbro]

mooms, on 23 November 2011 - 10:22 PM, said:

So Blue Islands are selling (yes selling and not scrapping) their Tri's. Therefore all the pilots have been told that they have no jobs after they are sold (start of December).

Happy Christmas

Whoever buys this one might want to get the brakes checked...

LINKEY

[bigchang]

maybe we get one of them each as a pay off,if they this crappy,lol

[SteveF]

"Posted on Saturday, November 26, 2011 - 10:34 am: Edit PostDelete Post
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to respond to this letter. First of all, we would like to make it clear that the States does not run Aurigny. The government is the shareholder but does not have anything to do with the day-to-day running of the airline, nor its payment process.
As we have said in the past, we would welcome regulation that limits the level of card charges within the airline and other industries. The costs associated with processing card payments were, in the past, part of “all-inclusive” prices – today they tend to be presented as a component of the overall price of a flight.
Experience has taught us that if we try to market fares that are “fully inclusive,” the difference between our displayed prices and those of our competitors that charge for payments is too great and we lose business. A universal agreement on charges would remove this problem, although we believe that the facility to price differently for payment by credit and debit cards should be maintained, as the costs for the two methods are different.
However, even with the removal of card charges, we (and every other airline that makes card charges) would have to increase our fares to cover the lost revenue.
Aurigny spokesman"

Did anyone spot the above in the letter to the Guernsey Press from an Aurigny spokesman?

So they are NOT charging the customer the same fee they get charged, but are making profit on the charges. Taht would explain the high charges.

[beaufort]

This debate is continuing on RG this morning and they are still trying to defend it. How they can try and defend the indefensible is beyond me, it is a total rip off. As a caller has just said, the vast majority of people book online now so they must be making a huge saving on costs as the customer is doing all the work for them.

Even though this isn't finance industry related I wonder if with an election looming some politician won't try and do something about it.

[beaufort]

I see this is still rumbling on, made the front page of the GEP.

[castelite]

Interesting to see he price comparative adverts in the GEP with Blue Islands comparing the cost of flying to Bristol. What they omit to say with the Guernsey/Bristol route is the extra time sitting on an aircraft going via Jersey. Also 40 minutes on an ATR or 15 minutes plus 45 minutes on a Jetstream! I'd rather pay the extra with Aurigny for a direct service!