REMOTE airports in Scotland attracted record passengers of more than 1.4 million last year.
New destinations and extra capacity on existing routes saw passenger traffic through Highlands and Islands airports such as Benbecula, Stornoway and Tiree increase to their highest ever levels in 2014/15.
Traffic through Inverness Airport hit a six-year high of 657,661 passengers, up six per cent on the previous year, while Barra Airport - famed for its exhilarating beach landing - enjoyed a 14 per cent spike in passengers, the biggest increase of any of the Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL) airport group. It is said to be attracting increasing numbers of tourists from around the world.
The figures emerged in the latest annual report from HIAL, the Scottish Government-owned and publicly subsidised company responsible for operating 11 of Scotland's lifeline regional airports. Taxpayer funding returned to normal levels of £20.1 million last year, after dipping to £14.9m the previous year.
The report showed that the group's airports handled more than 1.4 million passengers in the 12 months to March 2015, an increase of 4.7 per cent on the previous financial year.
Inverness was the busiest airport with Sumburgh on Shetland, a key stop off for offshore industry helicopters, another strong performer with passenger traffic up 8 per cent year-on-year despite fluctuations in the oil price and job cuts in the energy sector.
The overall increase in HIAL passenger traffic has been credited to new routes launched during the year.
Inverness Airport launched a new service to Dublin, a major hub for connecting traffic to the US and Canada, while services from Inverness to Manchester – which links to dozens of destinations in the Middle East and Asia – expanded to three a day.
EasyJet also expanded capacity on its popular Inverness to Gatwick route, with a new business friendly schedule, while Dundee gained a new daily service to London Stansted and Sumburgh secured a new twice weekly service to the Norwegian city of Bergen, boosting its oil industry credentials.
The HIAL group also includes airports in Benbecula, Campbeltown, Islay, Kirkwall, Stornoway, Tiree and Wick John O’Groats.
Inglis Lyon, Managing Director of HIAL, said: “The UK air travel industry is enjoying a period of sustained growth and the signs of this success are evident across regional Scotland.
"For HIAL, 2014/15 ranks as our best ever year with a record number of passengers using our airports, continued expansion at major gateways such as Inverness and Sumburgh, and new airline partnerships that make it easier than ever to see the world from our airports.”
Grenville Johnson, Chairman of HIAL, said: “I can think of no airport group in the UK that is as diverse as HIAL with our unique mix of island, coastal and city airports. Every one of our 11 airports is unique but they have one thing in common - they are all essential for the communities they serve. They ensure families, visitors, businesses and communities are better connected.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here