Aurigny passengers frustrated by communication breakdowns during Storm Austen disruptions

Storm Austen grounded flights and disrupted the autumn half-term getaway over the weekend, leaving travelers stranded across Guernsey and prompting criticism over communication breakdowns.

High winds from Storm Austen severely disrupted travel plans at the start of the autumn half-term holiday, grounding aircraft across the network. Aurigny executives acknowledged that the severe weather created an extremely challenging weekend for both travelers and flight operations.

Storm Austen Grounds Flights and Frustrates Passengers

Liv Bichard planned to fly from Guernsey to attend an important family event. She initially booked a route to Southampton on Friday before switching to Gatwick and a Saturday evening service.

Her travel plans collapsed when repeated rebookings failed to materialize. and it just kept cancelling and they didn’t warn me, Bichard said, noting that she only discovered her flight was grounded after arriving at the airport.

Bronwen Dudley-Owen faced similar hurdles while attempting to fly to Paris for a funeral, with a return trip routed through London. She contacted the airline’s call centre to check if flights would run while Guernsey Airport faced impending closures.

I’m absolutely baffled as to why they didn’t let their customer support team know what was going on on the ground.

Bronwen Dudley-Owen, Passenger

Dudley-Owen added that she experienced no communication whatsoever and argued that the whole system needs to be reviewed. She reported receiving conflicting guidance when the call centre indicated her flight was running while ground staff at the Aurigny office stated otherwise.

Aurigny Maintains Partial Service During the Storm

Aurigny Chief Commercial Officer Philip Saunders defended the airline’s response, emphasizing that the company’s first priory as an airline is to always put safety first. He explained that travel conditions were outside of the limits possible for our aircraft over the weekend.

Saunders noted that Aurigny operated 50% of its scheduled services on Saturday and pretty much all of the network by Sunday.

Saunders maintained that customer service agents provided accurate details based on available data. The reality is that the situation was fluid and that operational circumstances change and evolve in storms of this nature, he said.

Airline Response and Recovery Efforts Following the Storm

Aurigny moved aircraft off-island to evade the worst of the weather. The carrier also encouraged customers to accept refunds given the severity of the disruptions.

Saunders stated that the airline issued updates through its website and dispatched cancellation notices via email and text message. We are confident that we sent cancellation messages to all passengers, he said.

He noted that passengers who booked through travel agencies relied on those agents for direct notifications. He pointed out that there are legal limits as to the communication the airline can undertake directly with the passenger, and added that for whom in many cases we would not have contact details for.

Aurigny warned that it would take several days to clear the backlog of delays accumulated over the storm-hit weekend.

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

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