Coping with peak demand for flights from the beach

Coping with peak demand
for flights from the beach

Since airlines started operating regular flights to Jersey, there have been numerous occasions when demand for seats has exceeded the capacity of the regular aircraft

Passengers embark or disembark from the Voyager at Heston

Usually this has been after periods of poor weather have restricted flying: it has often been said that the airport was built in the foggiest place in Jersey.

But, as this report from Flight Magazine on 17 May 1934 recorded, sometimes, before the Airport was built and flights operated from the beach, the problems could be caused by having too many people wanting to fly at the same time.

"Last Saturday the British Air Navigation Co's Tri-motor Ford Voyaget was pressed into service between Heston and Jersey to transport an 'overflow' load of nine passengers from the regular service."

Flight picture of the aircraft on the ground (sands) in Jersey

Although it is not unusual for a photographic record to exist of a particularly large aircraft's arrival in the island, this is one of those rare occasions when a pictorial record exists of both ends of the flight.

It is not entirely clear from the records whether the Voyager carried stranded passengers from Heston to Jersey, or in the opposite direction, or both.