Last mail plane is end of an era for flower seller

The final mail plane delivery will leave the island later following the Guernsey Post announcement in March that all post to the UK would be delivered by sea freight network.

Guernsey Post took over provision of the mail plane from Royal Mail in April last year.

Guernsey Flowers, which ships cut flowers to the UK, has decided to end its operations as a result, while Guernsey Clematis has shifted their direct orders to boat delivery.

Chief executive of Guernsey Post Steve Sheridan said the end of the plane service was an "economic inevitability" and the company had worked hard to ensure replacement services met customer needs.

General manager of Guernsey Flowers, Jason Brouard said the company would stop trading after the final mail plane left the island on Friday.

"We just don't find that the [sea] delivery times are good enough for what we need... it's too long in the box," he said.

The Stan Brouard Group, which also runs a garden centre in the island, bought Guernsey Flowers in 1995 and grew flowers for the company prior to the purchase.

In recent years, with the decline of the island's growing industry, the company had moved to importing flowers from the UK and then exporting them to customers off island.

Brouard said while the closure of Guernsey Flowers would not have much of a financial impact on the Stan Brouard Group, the loss would still be felt.

He said he had been in touch with long-term UK customers, some of whom had been on the company's database for more than 30 years and still sent cheques and cash in the post.

"It's quite devastating for them really because I don't think they'll order flowers from anywhere else," he said.

Guernsey Clematis, which grows and sells live clematis varieties for wholesale shipment across the world, said they predominantly used a boat freight service through a logistics company already and only 2 to 3% of direct orders were delivered by plane.

General manager Paul Ingrouille said: "We would hope to get them to the customers within three or four days, which we should manage with the [Guernsey Post] boat system."

The mail plane had been delivering the majority of the island's outbound post.

Sheridan from Guernsey Post said rising costs made it "financially unsustainable".

"You've only got to look across the water in Jersey, they removed their mail plane, I think two years ago and similarly in the Isle of Man they've had the similar challenges," he said.

"I think we've done our very best to keep it as long as possible but unfortunately it is an economic inevitability."

He said Guernsey Post was confident in its replacement services, including partnering with Aurigny to provide a next day delivery service on passenger planes, for things like medical samples and documents and moving all other deliveries to sea.

He said "boat connectivity" had been reliable over the last year "so, other than customers expecting a 24 hour delay on standard mail, it's going to be a very resilient and reliable service for them".

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