Highland Airways announced today (Tuesday 27 January) that it will cease operation on two of its scheduled passenger services at the end of the week.

The once daily return between Inverness and Glasgow and the twice daily return between Glasgow and Benbecula will complete their final flights on Thursday 29 January. All pre-booked passengers will be notified and full refunds provided. A final late afternoon single rotation is also being offered this Friday 30^th to ensure that passengers are not stranded for the weekend.

Highland Airways has operated the services since the beginning of November but has taken the decision to withdraw them due to low passenger volumes and poor yields.

Commercial manager Basil O'Fee said: "We have been running these services since November 3rd and average loads have been disappointing. The Inverness-Glasgow service only attracted an average of four to five passengers per flight and an average of seven passengers used the Glasgow-Benbecula service.

"Despite three months of effort and marketing, including good value discounts and offers, we have come to the conclusion that passenger bookings are not increasing sufficiently to justify further financial underwriting of these services that are operated at our own commercial risk.

"These passenger services were underperforming in comparison to our core contract and charter flying business and it would be commercially unwise to continue cross-subsidising them when passenger numbers do not reflect increasing demand," said Mr O’Fee.

Highland Airways said the decision had no impact on its other activities and it will continue to play an important role in the Scottish aviation scene with its remaining well-used scheduled services and other airfreight, charter and reconnaissance business.

Mr O’Fee said: "We apologise to any members of the public whose plans will be inconvenienced by this decision. We do hope that those affected will appreciate that we have made every effort to sustain these routes, but the fact is that not enough people were using them to make them viable."

ENDS