Aurigny say delays receiving new parts has impacted ATR availability for regional routes.

The Guernsey owned airline sold its only jet in July, to transition to a full ATR fleet.

At the time, the company said having the same aircraft type would streamline the use of pilots, maintenance equipment and the supply of spare parts, resulting in fewer disruptions to the schedule.

However, Aurigny has had a long wait for new parts, such as nose landing gear, which has impacted fleet availability.

Alexis Vidal from ATR in Toulouse says although the company has more than one thousand planes, flying to one hundred countries, with two hundred operators - Aurigny is a priority:

"Guernsey is at the core of our purpose, to serve communities in particular when they are located on islands where air service is essential.

The choice that Aurigny made to go for a full ATR fleet is going to pay off.

2024 is hopefully stabilising, we are working hard to see improvements in the coming months and certainly in 2025."

Mr Vidal says supply chain issues have hit the entire aviation industry, not just ATR.

He says the pandemic and geo-political events have extended delivery timelines.

"We are doing what we can to deliver with our supply chain and the required gear for Aurigny to ensure that they restore capacity.

Across the whole chain, be that manufacturers, airline or even passengers, there is nobody having any interest in having an aircraft not flying."