HIAL has robustly defended criticism of landing charges at Inverness Airport.

The airport operator condemned claims over landing charges by SNP Shadow Minister for Transport and Tourism, Kenny MacAskill MSP as "inaccurate and misleading".

HIAL's Managing Director Bob Macleod said: "Today’s comments by Mr MacAskill are nothing more than an ill-informed media stunt aimed at grabbing headlines with no regard to the facts. It is inaccurate and misleading to claim that Inverness Airport has amongst the highest landing charges in Europe when the figures actually show the landing charges are on the median average for airports of a comparable size.

"As an issue, allegedly high landing charges at Inverness seems to rear its head every time it is expedient for someone to try and score political points and I would once and for all like to place the facts on record.

"Our landing charges are neither unusually high nor unusually low, they are average. Furthermore, there is a range of generous distance-related rebates which apply to airline operators using any of our 10 regional airports. And finally, owing to Highlands and Islands Airports unique operating environment, serving some of Scotland’s most remote communities with relatively low population densities, the fact is that each and every passenger travelling via our facilities is heavily subsidised.

"Part of our remit is specifically to support economic development and sustainability. This is backed up by the fact that we have worked successfully with easyJet to attract low cost flights into Inverness and with bmi to bring a new service linking Stornoway and Edinburgh into operation at the end of this month.

"We offer a good deal to all passenger carriers using our facilities and the expansion of services and increase in passenger numbers bears this out. The commercial arrangements between us and passenger carriers are matters only for the parties concerned but we fully expect more carriers to be using our airports in the not too distant future. If our charges were either uncompetitive or unattractive to airline operators this would not be happening.

"It would be more encouraging for HIAL and the stakeholders in our operations and the communities we serve to see politicians backing the hard work we put in to providing a value for money service to the travelling public and taxpayers rather than levelling inaccurate and ill-informed criticism at our operations."

HIAL's 10 airports handled more than 830,000 passengers in 2001-2002. Inverness Airport handled 376,378 terminal and transit passengers in this period, a 5% increase on the previous year. Freight handled amounted to 1,667 tonnes, a 66% increase on the previous year.

ENDS