The number of passengers passing through Scotland's regional airports has increased as a strong run of growth for the operator continues.
The 11 airports handled a total of 410,875 passengers from July to September - up 3.1% compared to the same period last year.
Islay was the fastest growing airport in the group, with an extra 1,009 passengers, while Inverness was the strongest-performing.
Operator Hial said Dundee recorded a 2.9% increase in passenger numbers during the quarter as a result of steady demand for its Stansted service and the impact of the Open Championship in St Andrews.
Elsewhere, numbers dropped slightly at Kirkwall and Stornoway, with declines also recorded at Campbeltown and Wick John O'Groats.
Inglis Lyon, managing director of Hial, said: "These are strong figures for the quarter and show that demand on most services and at most airports is increasing.
"Inverness is continuing to perform well thanks to new and expanding services, and we are working hard to provide even more choice for passengers. After a difficult start to the year, Sumburgh also enjoyed a strong third quarter.
"The success of smaller island airports such as Islay, Benbecula and Tiree illustrates the important role that aviation plays in connecting remote and island communities.
"The arrival this summer of two new aircraft serving Barra, Campbeltown and Tiree is further good news for those communities."
The latest figures follow a period of growth for the airports after they handled a record number of passengers in 2014.
Hial said last year was the busiest 12 months for the airports, which saw 1.4 million people passing through.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel