Fog 'causes disruption' at Guernsey Airport

Fog and the lack of an instrument landing system at Guernsey Airport has caused disruption to flights, the airport director has said.

Since mid-afternoon flights in and out of the island have been disrupted by low lying fog.

Colin Le Ray said the system allowed planes to land in lower visibility by giving guidance to pilots, particularly when the cloud base was low.

He said the the system was unavailable due to the airfield refurbishment work.

Mr Le Ray said work to reinstall the system, which was removed at the end of last year, had been delayed by the weather.

He said: "The area concerned is largely waterlogged, we had made some progress last week with the dry weather conditions and we were hoping to get the unit back into action."

The part of the system dealing with approaches from the east is working, but not for western landings.

Mr Le Ray said the system allowed planes to land in lower visibility by giving guidance to pilots, "particularly when the cloud base is low".

He said the system would need to be moved again during the work, but should be reinstalled permanently after the summer.

Mr Le Ray said the airport would stay open late on Wednesday if needed in order catch up with the backlog, but flights should be back to normal on Thursday as the weather was due to clear.