Campaign steps up as decision on Highland-London air links awaited
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AN announcement on the future of crucial air links between the Highlands and London is expected this autumn.
Easyjet is set to reveal whether it will retain early morning and evening flights on the Inverness to Gatwick route, particularly vital to business travellers, when it announces its summer 2014 timetable in October.
It means business and community leaders have just over three months to attempt to influence the airline’s decision, after it bought out the landing and departure times at Gatwick currently used by Flybe for the services.
“I don’t know whether we will be able to say something in advance but the timetable comes out every October and that is what we are working to at the moment,” said an easyJet spokeswoman.
It comes while there is uncertainty over whether easyJet will retain the three daily services Flybe will stop operating in March next year.
Representatives of the airline are meeting people who want to discuss the possible impact of its prospective acquisition of the runway slots — a deal set to be approved by Flybe’s shareholders next month.
“In the meantime, easyJet will look at a range of options for these slots including the routes currently served by Flybe,” added the spokeswoman.
Last month easyJet stressed it was committed to continuing to provide Inverness with links to London.
Highland Council’s leader Drew Hendry is hopeful the local authority can work “towards a positive result” with the airline, which already provides daily services between Inverness and Gatwick, after meeting Hugh Aitken, the company’s head of Scotland, in the Highland Capital on Tuesday.
“I’m confident in the case that we made to Easyjet that they will see that there are outstanding opportunities for Inverness and the Highlands and Islands,” said Councillor Hendry, who was guarded on the exact details of the discussion. “I’m also confident that will be positively reflected by easyJet.”
Councillor Hendry continued: “I believe that easyJet are very positive about Inverness in general, but clearly they have a business decision to make. One of the main tasks of the meeting was to present the strongest possible case for the Highlands and Islands.
“It’s vital that everybody works together and understands the situation we are faced with is one of a commercial nature and it is really important that everybody in the Highlands works together to make sure that the case is as strong as possible in both in the short term, over the links that we need, but also in the medium and long term, to build the links that we will need in the future.
"We have huge opportunities with growth in life sciences, renewable energy, oil and gas fabrication and a range of other business sectors and it is vital they are supported with transport links.”
Councillor Hendry added: “I don’t think it should just be a case of us worrying about losing something, it has to be a positive case because a lot of the traffic on those routes is incoming traffic, which we mustn’t forget is a massive opportunity for us and has grown over the years and will continue to grow.”
Earlier this week, pressure was building for politicians north and south of the border to introduce sanctions to safeguard air links between Inverness and Gatwick, or Heathrow, another of London’s hub airports.
Steps for Holyrood and Westminster to address air connectivity have been outlined for UK secretary of state for transport Patrick McLoughlin and Scottish transport minister Keith Brown in letters from the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, including calls for them to look at imposing a Public Service Obligation (PSO) on the route.
Used by many European Union countries, PSOs enable scheduled air services to be maintained on routes vital for the economic development of a region.
Flybe insists it is no longer economically viable to work with Gatwick. The sale of its 25 runway slots for £20 million is part of the airline’s cost-cutting measures, under which 600 workers have been made redundant and pilots have agreed a 5 per cent pay cut.
