The largest airport in the Highlands and Islands will be open on 30 July, Highlands and Islands Airports confirmed today.

Airport fire service staff have agreed to provide rescue and fire fighting cover at Inverness Airport on the first day of strike action planned by the Unite trades union. This will enable scheduled flights to operate as normal.

Unite represents fire fighter, leading fire fighter and engineer grades at the company and has rejected a 2% pay offer. HIAL employees represented by the PCS and Prospect trades unions have accepted the 2% pay award.

Talks yesterday to avert industrial action by members of Unite failed after the trades union rejected the company’s offer to go to conciliation and mediation with ACAS. Offers by the company’s senior management to address staff at all HIAL’s airports on the issue of pay and to work with the union on achieving greater flexibility in pay deals for future years were also rejected.

Unite will now stage 24 hours of industrial action on Monday 30 July and every subsequent Monday until resolution.

James Walton, Inverness Airport manager said: “Following local discussions we have reviewed the operational resources available to us at Inverness and can confirm that we will be providing the appropriate fire and rescue cover. This will ensure that around 2,000 passengers will be able to travel as normal on 30 July at Inverness which is the region’s busiest airport.

“We are delighted with the support and co-operation from the staff at Inverness which will enable passengers and airlines to go about their business as normal. I am sure that people planning to travel on 30 July will also be very grateful for their efforts.”

The operational impact at HIAL’s other nine airports is still being assessed but the worst case scenario remains that if fire fighters and leading fire fighters strike then scheduled flights will be severely disrupted.

HIAL’s priority is to minimise disruption at its airports. The company would prefer that Unite members to come to work as normal on 30 July but recognises that it is down to the individuals concerned to decide whether to observe the day of action or not.