Atlantic Star Airlines must regretfully announce that there will be a delay to the sale of tickets.

Atlantic Star Airlines must regretfully announce that there will be a delay to the sale of tickets on their first charter flights between the UK and St Helena planned for Easter 2016.

We realise that this will come as a considerable disappointment to the many Saints, potential visitors and tourism businesses on St. Helena who have been waiting for seats on these flights to become available to purchase.

Atlantic Star had entered in to partnership with Titan Airways of Stansted to operate the flights. Detailed negotiations had been been concluded and a draft agreement reached. However we received notification this week that Titan have unilaterally declared all agreements void and are no longer willing to operate the services. It goes without saying that we feel extremely let down.

Clearly this is a major setback and we now find ourselves in the position of needing to identify a new charter provider in a shorter timeframe. As a consequence we find ourselves unavoidably forced to "stop the clock" on the countdown to ticket sales. We know how disappointed many people reading this release will be and we are hard at work engaging a replacement airline for the charter programme. This will take time, and we will keep our future customers and trade partners informed as and when it is appropriate to do so.

Our passion for St.Helena as a destination remains undimmed, and we maintain our belief that direct flights to and from the UK are desirable as well as operationally and financially feasible.

Richard Brown, Andy Radford and Aiden Walsh

The Atlantic Star Leadership Team.