Derek Provan, the chief executive officer of AGS Airports Ltd, the owner and operator of Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports, has revealed his ‘three wishes’ for the successful future of aviation in Scotland.

Speaking as a guest on the Go Radio Business Show with Hunter & Haughey, he said: “If you look at Aberdeen and Glasgow airports alone, we generate about £2 billion a year to the Scottish economy and support about 30,000 jobs.

“To allow us to continue to do that, if I had three wishes, the first would be to have better marketing of the regions in Scotland: something that says you want to fly to Scotland, which the airlines feel is important to do.

“Secondly, certainly for Glasgow, is surface access. We have been speaking about a rail link and I’ve been round the houses in rail links three times now at Glasgow airport: a rail link, a tram, a metro.

“We had a connectivity commission that clearly stated we needed a metro or a rail link for Glasgow airport.

“We are the only airport of our size in Europe that only has road as access. So certainly we need to get moving on that straight away.

“Lastly, I think we need an understanding from government that we generate £2 billion GVA every year.”

Mr Provan admitted there are some real challenges for aviation going forward, particularly around climate change. However he added: “We need to change the ministerial rhetoric around the boundary nature of fly or don’t fly.

“We shouldn’t be making people feel guilty to fly.

“I’ve a roadmap that will have us at net zero for our own emissions by the mid-2030s. It’s costed and board-approved. We will be able to deliver it.

“We’ve been able to de-couple growth and CO2 emissions for many years.

“If you look at this from an aviation perspective, we’re still operating the same level of CO2 as we were in 1992 but we’ve quadrupled the volume of passengers who are flying.

“We believe we can grow and we can meet the transition – and we have to transition!”