Highlands and Islands Airports and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar today (23 April 2007) met to discuss the impact of the current shortage of air traffic control staff at Stornoway Airport.

HIAL’s Managing Director, Inglis Lyon, and Stornoway Airport Manager, Duncan Smith, met with the local authority’s Convener, Chief Executive, Chair of Transportation Committee and Director of Technical Services in Stornoway this morning.

Both parties took the opportunity to fully explore the situation, its causes and the solutions that are being worked through in a productive discussion.

Inglis Lyon said: “We are working towards a solution to the temporary closures that are in place at Stornoway just now and this was a very important opportunity to examine the situation in detail with the council.

“The council is an important strategic partner for us in the Western Isles and we all agreed that we should be working together to achieve the desired solution to the current issue at Stornoway.

“The airport is dealing with operational challenges on a day to day basis and both parties agree that the priority is to overcome these while ensuring any impact on passengers and the airlines is minimised. Equally, when disruption to air services is unavoidable we also need to ensure that this is communicated to airport users as far in advance as possible.

“We are therefore very grateful to the council for the opportunity to discuss both the immediate situation and our solutions in addition to some of the longer term and strategic issues relating to air services in the Western Isles. We are committed to working with the council as a key stakeholder to return operations at Stornoway to normal in the coming months and on wider development issues,” said Mr Lyon.