Blue Islands will be raising money and increasing the profile of six Channel Island charities over the coming three months, with their logos placed onto the side of one of its aircraft and passengers asked to donate across the 1,000 flights it operates every month.

Autism Guernsey and Autism Jersey will be the first two charities the airline supports.

Rob Veron, Blue Islands CEO said the plan was to make them as much money as possible and raise the profile of the charities.

We are thrilled to be partnering with Autism Guernsey and Autism Jersey, who do such great work in the islands. We want to raise funds to allow the charities to further their projects, which make such a significant difference in their communities. We chose the inter-island aircraft to sport the logos, as it operates 10 flights per day and will further raise the profile of both charities.

That’s the plan for October. For November we are asking our 100-strong team across Guernsey and Jersey which charities they would like to support, one from each island. In December, we’re turning the voting over to the public, with a poll due to take place on Facebook to nominate two children’s charities which we can support in the run up to Christmas.

Blue Islands is 100% locally owned and operated, which is why we support Guernsey and Jersey based charities as often as we can. We are really excited to finish 2017 with this initiative.

Julia Watts, Autism Guernsey Services Manager, said:

Having support from a prestigious company such as Blue Islands is a great boost in our fundraising efforts and will help raise awareness of autism and our charity. We could not be more grateful to Blue Islands for their extremely generous offer of advertising Autism Guernsey on the side of their plane during October and the airline’s passengers for their donations.

Autism Guernsey does not receive any statutory funding, we are constantly looking for funding in order to remain sustainable and meet the needs of the autism community. We rely completely on charitable grants, donations and fundraising to continue to provide our 1:1 Outreach Service to adults, or run the much-needed clubs for those with autism.

Paul Sullivan, Autism Jersey Chief Operations Officer, said:

We are delighted to have been chosen alongside Autism Guernsey to be part of this exciting initiative with Blue Islands. We are really excited to have our logo on a plane and to have our name associated with two fantastic organisations. We also welcome the opportunity to work together for the benefit of Channel Islanders, and we hope the travelling public will be supportive of their local airline.