French airline boss hopes new routes here to stay

The chief executive of French airline Finistair has hopes a new flight route will continue if a trial is successful.

Finistair will run flights every Friday and Sunday until the end of August as part of an agreement between the governments of Jersey and Alderney.

The routes are between Jersey, Alderney and the Brittany city of Brest - providing direct air links between the islands for the first time in years.

Finistair boss Loïc Andro, who was on the first flight with six passengers that touched down in the island earlier, said: "The team is really happy to land in Jersey."

Mr Andro said he believed the trial period would be a success.

"We've been working on this destination for a long time," he said.

"There's already been a lot of interest in the route from passengers.

"I hope that it's going to be here be all year long and for many years because of the historic link that we have in between Jersey and France."

The flight time is about 35 minutes from Brest to Jersey, and 15 minutes from Jersey to Alderney, said the airline.

Ports of Jersey said it was working with Visit Jersey to promote the new routes and had worked with governments to reduce costs for the airline.

Airport operations director Ashley Maggs said the new connection between Jersey and Alderney was "incredibly important".

"We do need support for these routes so we would like to see if we can encourage people to come to the Channel Islands for that long weekend away from Europe," he said.

The first flight to Alderney had to be cancelled because of thick fog over the island.

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