Communication complaints after storm hits Aurigny flights

Air passengers said they were frustrated about delays and cancellations to their travel plans caused by Storm Austen when high winds grounded aircraft.

Liv Bichard was planning to take an Aurigny flight from Guernsey to attend an important family event.

She said her Aurigny flight was cancelled and she rebooked "and it just kept cancelling and they didn't warn me". Others also complained about what they said was a lack of communication.

The airline's chief commercial officer Philip Saunders said it did contact passengers and said safety was the firm's top priority.

Bichard told BBC Guernsey she had planned to fly to Southampton on Friday and then booked to Gatwick, before rebooking a flight on Saturday evening.

She said it would have helped "if they sent out more updates by email or text message".

She headed to the airport only to discover her flight was cancelled.

Bronwen Dudley-Owen also said she was frustrated with the level of communication.

She was due to fly to Paris to attend a funeral with a return flight via London over the weekend.

She asked the airline what she should do as Guernsey Airport was due to be closed, but said she was told by Aurigny's call centre the flight would be running but the Aurigny office said it would not go.

She said: "I'm absolutely baffled as to why they didn't let their customer support team know what was going on on the ground."

She added: "I've had no communication whatsoever. The whole system needs to be reviewed."

Saunders said the company regretted the delays and cancellations at the start of the autumn half-term getaway on an "extremely challenging weekend".

He said the "first priory as an airline is to always put safety first" and travel conditions "were outside of the limits possible for our aircraft over the weekend".

Aurigny operated 50% of the services on Saturday and "pretty much all of the network" on Sunday, Saunders added.

He said Dudley-Owen's flight had not been cancelled when she contacted the call centre and agents "provided her with the correct latest information we had available".

"The reality is that the situation was fluid and that operational circumstances change and evolve in storms of this nature," he added.

He said Aurigny issued updates on its website about the airport closure and sent emails and texts to passengers.

The airline also "unusually" suggested customers accepted refunds over the challenging weather conditions.

Saunders added aircraft were moved off-island to avoid the worst of the weather and it would take several days to clear the backlog of delays.

Saunders said: "We are confident that we sent cancellation messages to all passengers."

He said travel agents were responsible for contacting passengers who booked through them "and there are legal limits as to the communication the airline can undertake directly with the passenger, for whom in many cases we would not have contact details for".

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Plane and ferry disruption caused by high winds