Atlantic Star Latest News

The team at Atlantic Star are very aware of the current frustration felt by island residents and visitors regarding the uncertainty surrounding the provision of both scheduled and charter services to St Helena Airport.

We share this frustration, and want to reassure travellers that lots of background work is taking place to design a robust, safe and commercially viable solution to the challenges posed by the wind characteristics experienced in the late stages of approach to landing.

This process entails gathering as much real data as possible from the airport site and also includes theoretical modelling by the UK Meteorological Office.

When completed, a comprehensive understanding of the wind patterns and their effect on aircraft operations will allow appropriate mitigating procedures to be put in place. Atlantic Star, TUIfly and Comair are fully involved in this process, in conjunction with Airport management, SHG and DfID.

The challenges are complex, and inevitably will take some time to be resolved. Atlantic Star and TUIfly are committed to finding a solution that will allow us to operate our planned services in October 2016, but it would be premature to offer absolute certainty regarding these services given the list of ‘unknowns’ that exist at this time. As soon as an effective set of operating provisions are established we shall be offering tickets for sale through Travelpack Marketing and Leisure.

In the meantime we can only ask that passengers remain patient, assured that progress is being made to resume operations to this complex but exciting new airport. When we have more news we shall share it with you.

Thanks, as always, for your ongoing interest and enthusiasm for the Atlantic Star proposal to operate direct services between Europe and Saint Helena. We remain committed to seeking a safe solution as soon as possible to allow operations by Atlantic Star to commence in October.