THE chief executive of Edinburgh Airport has been called on to apologise after making a “highly inappropriate” joke about prostitutes and a Glasgow train service.

At an after-dinner speech in West Lothian Gordon Dewar said he was told the Sunday morning Glasgow-Gourock line had once been dubbed the “whorient express” by a rail worker.

Labour MSP Neil Findlay said he has been contacted by guests at the event who took umbrage to the comment: “I will be writing to Mr Dewar seeking an apology,” he said.

Dewar, who received a £547,000 remuneration package in 2016, is currently enjoying his second spell in charge of Scotland’s busiest airport. He is a champion of changing existing flight paths and has also backed cuts to air passenger duty, both of which are opposed by environmental groups.

As the keynote speaker at the West Lothian Chamber of Commerce business excellence awards earlier this month he spoke about “ambition” and the growth of his airport.

However, his general comments on the economy have been overshadowed by criticism over remarks about a previous job in the rail sector.

A 39-second extract of his speech, which is available on social media, shows him saying: "That's the one we call the whorient express." Adding: “I’ll take that as a laugh.”

It is understood the phrase was part of a wider anecdote that Dewar had told at previous events.

An airport source said the chief executive, in a previous career, had worked on the new ScotRail franchise launch where the first train was the 07:20 Sunday service from Glasgow Central to Gourock.

The source said it was “traditional” to celebrate the new franchise by throwing a party and Dewar had spoken to a staffer about bringing VIPs to travel on the line:

“The station employee said he wouldn’t want to do that as prostitutes used the train to go home after a night working in the red light district next to the station. The worker suggested that the train was known as the ‘whorient express’.”

However, Findlay said Dewar should not have repeated the phrase, even if he was quoting someone else saying it: “I have been approached by members of the public who attended this event, who were cringing at Mr Dewar’s highly inappropriate, so-called attempt at humour.”

Green MSP Ross Greer said: “Gordon Dewar’s comment was in pathetically poor taste. Sex workers are some of the most marginalised and stigmatised people in the country and thinking it ok to use the word ‘whore’ to describe them shows a callousness he really should apologise for.

“Given that he has run roughshod over local communities threatened by unnecessary airport expansion plans I don’t hold out much hope that he will apologise. I’d love to be proven wrong but until he does he’ll struggle to win friends in the West of Scotland with an attitude like that.”

A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said: “Gordon was relaying a true story, one that he’s told many times with no offence taken.

“It was Neil Findlay himself who earlier this year labelled the reaction to one of his own gags as ‘people who want to blow up a humorous comment into something it wasn't’ and asked if there was no room for humour in politics – we hope his view hasn’t changed on that.

“We’d rather be working with Mr Findlay on how best to assist West Lothian in realising the extent of its potential as a world class hub for investment, which was the focus of Gordon’s speech. And as one of the biggest employers in Mr Findlay’s constituency we’ll gladly engage with him on this and other issues our employees and partners face across the Lothians.”