A £2 million project to resurface the main runway at Tiree Airport in the Inner Hebrides has been completed.

Tiree is one of the smaller of 10 airports operated by Highlands and Islands Airports Limited and handled 7,500 passengers last year. The airport supports a scheduled air link to Glasgow operated by Loganair under a Scottish Government funded Public Service Obligation.

Work to resurface the main runway started in September and posed a considerable logistical challenge to the main contractor Colas.

Some 20,000 tonnes of aggregates and 1,000 tonnes of bitumen were transported to the island to resurface the 72,000m² runway during the project. Aggregates were transported by barge while the bitumen reached the island on the regular CalMac ferry service.

During the initial project mobilisation phase a ferry was chartered to move plant to the site which included paving machinery, tippers, on-site testing laboratory and one of the largest mobile asphalt plans in the UK with a production capacity of 225 tonnes per hour.

Completion of the project provides a more suitable runway surface for the increasing use of Saab 340 aircraft for scheduled flights.

The project formed part of HIAL’s rolling capital programme which aims to maintain fit for purpose infrastructure at its 10 airports. The works were programmed to avoid any interruption to the scheduled flights.

HIAL’s Infrastructure Services manager Grant Dudgeon said: “The runway infrastructure at Tiree is more than 60 years old but now provides a more even surface, better drainage and improved braking action for aircraft as result of our investment.”