Fly Montserrat’s service between Antigua and Montserrat is operating “very, very close to normal” despite an aviation fuel shortage, according to owner and CEO Nigel Harris.
Speaking on ZJB Radio on Monday, 5 August, Harris said services on Sunday “went fine” while he expected flights on Monday to run as planned and it to be “another normal day”.
Since 22 July, there has been no Avgas aviation fuel available at VC Bird International Airport in Antigua, leading to issues with refuelling and causing SVG Air to temporarily cancel its route.
Harris said Fly Montserrat had scheduled another trip to Guadeloupe on Monday to fill the planes with Avgas, which he hoped would be the last.
“I’m hoping tomorrow that Antigua returns to normal. We haven’t yet got that confirmed by our friends over at Signature [Flight Support] in Antigua.
“But during the next hour or so, as you’d expect, I shall be annoying them to find out if, in fact, we have supplies tomorrow.
“If not, don’t worry, we’ll continue like we are. It’s all working. It’s a well rehearsed plan.”
Harris said the company has three Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander aircraft in Montserrat now rather than the usual two.
He also said there had been two requests for medevac flights on Sunday evening, which are always given priority, but added that he didn’t think they would cause much of a disruption.
“So message to our passengers is, yep, we’re operating almost normally. Please check in on time, or, even better, earlier.
“Please don’t bring excess bags… with the fuel we’re having to carry for this operation we just don’t have the weight or the space for extra bags.
“So please just cut down on your packing that would really help everybody.
“I hope tomorrow morning to be able to report fuel in Antigua, but let’s wait and see. At the moment, we’re operating anyway.”
Harris thanked his staff at Fly Montserrat “who have extra gone the extra mile for us over the last few days” for what he described as quite a “major operation” to organise.
A spokesperson from Fly Montserrat told Montserrat Focus on Tuesday that the airline has been flying to Nevis and then Guadeloupe on a daily basis to pick up fuel.
