Blue Islands' customer survey shows requirement for better baggage policies

In preparation for its recent relaunch, Blue Islands, the Channel Islands airline, asked its passengers what product features they would like to change when the airline re-started. With over 2,000 responses the results were overwhelming.

80% of respondents want to take a standard sized cabin bag (55 x 35 x 20cm) on to the aircraft and nearly 70% said they would like a 23kg hold luggage allowance without paying an additional charge.

Given the clarity of the response Blue Islands has acted on both requests and all fares include a standard sized cabin bag (plus handbag/laptop bag) and 23kg hold luggage allowance as standard.

Commenting on the airline’s new product offerings, Rob Veron, CEO Blue Islands said “When we relaunched the Blue Islands brand, we wanted our product offering to be led by passengers and to reignite some of our core Blue Islands values. Our surveys during lockdown provided invaluable feedback, confirming the strength of feeling on baggage being so clear that we wanted to introduce our new baggage policies immediately. This means that Blue Islands now has industry leading baggage allowances as standard. We really do mean to create The Welcome Difference.”

In addition, passengers booking the new Blue Plus fare will get Missed Flight Protection, Advanced Seat Allocation and Get Home Early flexibility, all included as part of the fare.

Mr Veron concluded, “Passengers also told us that the next big issues after baggage were seat allocation and flexibility, which scored around 60% on our survey. We are very happy to build these items into our new Blue Plus fare; which also includes a double hold luggage allowance (2 x 23kg) and double Blue Skies points; our new Frequent Flyer programme. These passenger driven features mean that we are now a very different airline as we re-emerge from both the Covid-19 stoppage and the Flybe franchise.”

Blue Islands has now recommenced daily services between Jersey and Southampton with fares starting from £39.99. Jersey to Bristol services restart from 03 August, with the rest of the network following from 31 August. The additional services from Jersey include Exeter, Birmingham, East Midlands and Guernsey (01 September). The airline is also starting flights from Southampton to Guernsey, Manchester and Dublin; and from Exeter to Manchester. All are bookable now at www.blueislands.com.

Picture: Blue Islands.