Blue Islands are the only airline based in the Channel Islands that are certified to provide their own approved ATR training to pilots and cabin crew, both in house and externally. The local airline is approved under the European regulator EASA* as an Approved Training Organisation.

The approval means that Blue Islands can now train for initial, annual, recurrent and revalidation training that is required by all flight and cabin crew to become type -rated for the ATR aircraft. The training can be completed at the Blue Islands main operational base in Jersey and their simulator base in Morlaix, France.

Rob Veron, managing director of Blue Islands is delighted with the approval.

This is a huge achievement for our operational team as we are the only airline in the Channel Islands to have gained this approval. This means we no longer have to send away any of our locally based crew, we can be more dynamic with our programmes and further cement our roots here in the islands.

In addition, Blue Islands were one of the first airlines in Europe to gain approval to issue cabin crew attestations. These are the cabin crew equivalent to a pilots' license to fly. Second only to Virgin Atlantic, Blue Islands can now issue approved documentation to their cabin crew.