More than 500,000 passengers flew via airports in the North of Scotland in the past six months.

Figures for the second quarter of 2003/04 issued by HIAL today (Monday 20 September) show that 502,146 travellers used the company’s 10 airports in the six months to end of September. This is an increase on the previous year of more than 40,000 passengers.

Overall passenger growth for 2003/04 is 8.7% compared to 2002/03 with eight out of the company’s 10 airports recording growth or matching last year’s performance.

Inverness and Stornoway continued to be the fastest developing airports in the region with respective growth of 18.4% and 18%. Wick saw a small drop in passengers while Sumburgh’s figures continued to reflect the downturn in oil industry traffic.

Total aircraft movements, including scheduled, charter, executive, general aviation and military flights have also grown, up 7.3% to 43,698 for the six months, compared with an annual total for 2002/03 of 76,119.

A programme of outbound holiday charter flights is also currently operated from Inverness Airport by Transun. Thomsons will offer its first series of holiday flights from the region’s hub airport in 2004.

Bob Macleod, Managing Director of HIAL, said the increasing use of air services reflected the success of new and existing routes and the company’s proactive approach to developing its airports.

"Our market-led commercial strategy is paying off and the new routes and services launched in the past 12 months continue to see passenger numbers grow at a strong pace. With Eastern Airways’ new Inverness to Birmingham service and Highland Airways’ new Glasgow to Benbecula link coming on stream at the end of October we believe there is further growth to be achieved in the second half of the operating year," said Mr Macleod.

"Business and leisure travellers are recognising the benefits of travelling by air and we are delighted that our 10 airports are playing an increasingly important economic and social role in the Highlands and Islands. I would also like to acknowledge the work of our customer scheduled service airlines BA CitiExpress, Loganair, easyJet, Eastern Airways, Highland Airways and bmi in making air travel work for the region, its people and businesses.

"We continue to focus on our customers, both the airlines and public, and as a result we are working closely with local stakeholders like Highlands and Islands Enterprise to achieve further developments in the region’s air transport network. The support available to us through the Scottish Executive’s Route Development Fund, managed by Scottish Enterprise, is also providing valuable additional resources for our route development programme," added Mr Macleod.

ENDS