Falklands : Re-Vamped Airbridge Service for the New Year
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 18.10.2007 (Article Archived on 01.11.2007)
There will be a different approach in the way Airbridge seats are allocated in the new year.
RE-VAMPED AIRBRIDGE SERVICE FOR THE NEW YEAR
By J. Brock (FINN)
Councillor Mike Summers was in the UK last week to discuss, on behalf of the Falkland Islands Government, the Airbridge with MOD and FCO officials. He held a press conference on Wednesday to discuss some points of the talks held in the UK.
Beginning by saying that the Joint Position Statement (JPS) that was approved at cabinet level Cllr Summers mentioned that the Statement hasn’t been upgraded since the mid ‘80s and now that it is quite old it is no longer appropriate for today’s requirements. He went on to say that parallel to the upgrade there is an ambition to improve quality of service and make it deliverable. It is hoped that the strategy adopted will be an expandable one that meets the Falkland Islands requirements and to be more relevant to the way things are today.
Cllr Summers explained that east/west flights, regardless of a huge effort are still restricted to one flight a week. However, this leaves open the opportunity for flights from Europe or the UK, either with the MOD or eventually, if demand requires, with a private air carrier.
Part of the new Statement is the sale of seats on each Airbridge flight to the civilian community, to be managed by the civilian community. This means that if a seat is available and someone needs to get north or south in a hurry, the seat is sold to the person, rather than having to book in advance and wait for confirmation.
This can be expanded in that if there is excess demand, a fourth fortnightly flight can be called into service. “If we pay we can get the extra flight,” said Cllr. Summers. It is possible that the 4th flight would be cheaper to operate than the others.
In order to make it viable, the tourism industry needs to be approached. Also, with exploratory drilling there could be demand for seats from the oil industry but Cllr Summers stressed the importance of selling seats to tourists.
Scheduling will always take second place to Military requirements but we are used to this in the Falklands.
Cllr Summers said it would take time to work out the detail. The next step is to take the proposals to Executive Council next week. “There is a level of risk in going forward with the new plan. The level of commercial risk is significantly less than when we set up the LAN flights,” Cllr Summers said.
There are discussions on-going about who in the private sector will be booking the seats. This will be determined by FIG, who will also set the price of seats sold.
Cllr Summers said that representatives from Ascension Island and St. Helena also attended the meetings he did and will report to their governments.
The current contract for the DC-10 lasts until end September 2008. It is hoped to negotiate a 3-year contract after that.
“As a commercial partner, we will have more of a say about how the contract is operated,” said Cllr Summers. The MOD, however, will not take on more risk. If the civilian risk is to be less the seats available must be properly managed.
Much of the detail, including air freight, is open for discussion. Also under consideration is the price charged for residents and non-residents of the Falklands. What is certain is the ticket price of the passenger seat should be more and not less than what the civilian contractor paid for it.
More detail will be available after EXCO next week.
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