The Chief Minister says the taxpayer might have to subsidise airlines to keep routes going.

Howard Quayle was asked whether he agreed with a call made by former Manx Airlines boss Terry Liddiard of Travel Watch to look at establishing a national airline for the island.

He said: ’I don’t agree with him. I do agree that it may well be that we have to look at underwriting an airline’s flights to guarantee those flights.

’It might be that if at the end of the year they have not covered their costs we will pick up the tab. That might be something we will have to look at for the next number of years.’

Mr Quayle said: ’If you look at our good friends in Guernsey who do have their own airline company, I think that in a good year they have been losing £10million, and figures have been bandied around that there might be £30million losses this year as a result of Covid-19.

’I think if we owned our own airline company the taxpayers would not be impressed with that sort of loss.’

Mr Quayle continued: ’Underwriting flights from existing companies is to me a way forward if we have to do that.

’At the end of the day connectivity for our people and for our businesses is really important to enable them to get to business meetings or to see loved ones and relatives around the world.’

It was revealed in June that Guernsey’s airline made losses of £9.7million in 2019. That was almost £2m more than expected, States accounts revealed. The losses were more than those incurred in 2018 and 2017, which were £4.4m and £5.2m. It blamed the figures on ’erratic market conditions’ created by deregulating the market and States subsidies for competitors.