Air passenger traffic in the Highlands and Islands is showing strong growth according to year-end figures released for the region’s main airports.

More than 930,000 passengers travelled via the 10 airports operated by HIAL in the year ending 31 March 2004.

Passenger numbers across the company’s airports in the year increased by 8% to 933,779 compared to the 2002-2003 total of 864,301.

The largest year on year passenger growth was recorded at Inverness with 18.8% and Stornoway with 11.1%. Passenger numbers have also increased over the past 12 months at Barra, Benbecula, Campbeltown, and Kirkwall while Islay’s performance matched the previous year. There have been small decreases in passenger numbers at Wick and Tiree while Sumburgh’s figures continued to reflect the downturn in oil-related traffic.

Total aircraft movements, including scheduled, charter, executive, general aviation and military flights have also grown across the 10 airports in the past 12 months, up by 6.5% to a total of 81,064 for the year.

Bob Macleod, Managing Director of HIAL, said: “Passenger numbers have increased by 10% this year if we exclude oil-related traffic at Sumburgh from the equation. However, the impact of the lower offshore industry passenger numbers means that overall passenger growth is 8.0%, a figure with which we are still very pleased.

“A number of new routes and services have been introduced during the year by airline customers Eastern Airways, bmi and the low-cost Swedish carrier Snowflake. Snowflake’s Stockholm link is the first direct scheduled international service at Inverness for a number of year and a very welcome development.  Loganair has also increased the frequency of flights on a number of its routes in the region.

“These factors, coupled with cheaper fares and promotions offered by BA CitiExpress and easyJet, have all contributed to the ongoing growth in passenger numbers and have enabled more people to travel by air both within the region and onwards to Central Scotland, Manchester, Birmingham, London and Stockholm.

“I am also delighted that Inverness, our principal passenger hub, now has four services to London, including a new daily Heathrow service introduced by bmi at the end of March, and that our London traffic continues to grow.

“While bmi’s Heathrow service and Snowflake’s Stockholm routes only started at the end of March they lay the foundations for further growth in the year ahead and we hope that more new services will come on-stream in the next 12 months,” said Mr Macleod.

HIAL Passenger Totals for 2003-2004 (1 April 2003 – 31 March 2004)