HIAL has defended route development work in the region following criticism that the Scottish Executive’s Interim Route Development Fund was not benefiting the North of Scotland.

Bob Macleod, Managing Director of HIAL said: "A huge amount of effort has gone into the Interim Route Development Fund from HIAL, HIE, SCDI, the Scottish Executive, Scottish Enterprise and leading aviation consultants. We are confident that this will pay off in terms of new routes but this doesn’t happen over night.

"At present we are in advanced discussions with a number of airlines regarding new cross border and European links. Part of this process involves the airlines being certain of passenger load factors into the region as well as the traffic out from airports like Inverness. We are putting strong business cases to them for flying into the Highlands but there should be no doubt that airlines require a lot of convincing when it comes to considering regional hubs like Inverness over the country’s larger airports.

"Edinburgh is the venue for the world’s major aviation networking event Routes in early September and we will be talking with over 20 airlines during the event and bringing a number of potential customers up to Inverness as well. The RDF and the fact that the Scottish Executive and Scottish Enterprise pulled off a major coup in bringing Routes to Scotland all form part of the intensive work that is going into route development in the region – an initiative that is supported across the public and private sectors.

"This should also be viewed in the context of strong passenger growth at our airports due to new routes launched late last year and early this year – passenger growth at Inverness is currently running at 20%.

"HIAL and its stakeholders are certain that the RDF will play a crucial factor in bringing even more air services to the region in the next year."

ENDS