Aurigny apologises for 'unprecedented' flight cancellations over Easter

• ITV Channel TV's Jonathan Wills speaks to Jess Mauger from Aurigny

Aurigny has apologised after grounding its Alderney services across the Easter weekend.

Neither of the airline's Dornier aircraft that serve the route were able to run over the Bank Holiday weekend, causing travel chaos for people trying to travel to and from the island.

One of the planes was out of service due to routine maintenance, while the other suffered technical issues. Boats then had to be chartered for travel to and from Guernsey before services returned to normality on Easter Monday.

Jess Mauger from Aurigny says the situation was 'unprecedented', but that the airline understood passengers' frustrations.

She said, "We'd really like to apologise to all our customers who were affected. This hasn't happened in five years of running the operation like this and we'd like to apologise for any inconvenience that they had over the weekend."

Aurigny faced criticism from one Alderney politician, who said the current model that serves the island was not fit for purpose.

However, Aurigny insists the Dornier is the best plane for the service.

"The Dornier are the correct aircraft for the route at this time. There are very few aircraft that are able to run a route like Guernsey-Alderney, Southampton Alderney. They are the right aircraft.

"There are very few places in the world that operate Dorniers, we did try and get parts from places and we did try and get another aircraft in. So we have tried to rectify the situation and what we're going to do going forward is we're certainly working with the manufacturer more closely so that we can get parts on the shelf should something like this happen again ."