Proposals to centralise air traffic control for seven airports could put jobs and safety at risk, a union has warned.
Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL) has proposed creating a remote tower centre - which it said would be a UK first - as part of plans to "future-proof" its operations with an estimated £28 million investment over the next ten to 15 years.
Air traffic controllers would be moved to a central hub, the location of which has not yet been decided.
The airports involved are Sumburgh, Dundee, Inverness, Wick John O'Groats, Kirkwall, Stornoway and Benbecula.
HIAL said its airports at Barra, Tiree, Islay and Campbeltown have different levels of air traffic usage and would not be affected by the changes.
The HIAL board has agreed in principle to the move, recommended in a report by aviation consultancy Helios, and will now hold further talks with staff, stakeholder groups and politicians about the implementation of the project.
Air traffic controllers union Prospect has raised concerns about the proposals.
David Avery, Prospect aviation officer in Scotland, said: "Prospect supports HIAL's need to modernise its infrastructure to keep up pace with regulations and that this will require significant investment.
"However, any centralised monitoring system will be dependent on a reliable, resilient and secure communications infrastructure between the mainland and the island which simply does not exist.
"HIAL are gambling on this and Prospect believes this is gambling with people's safety.
"Air traffic control provides high-quality, skilled, highly-paid employment in the islands with many controllers recruited and trained locally. Centralisation will remove these roles from the islands.
"We do not believe the report has given sufficient weight to these considerations and HIAL's role as an employer in the Highlands and Islands."
HIAL, which is owned by the Scottish Government, said there will be no immediate changes to its operations, with the plans proposed over ten to 15 years.
It said the long-term remote towers and centralised approach surveillance control programme will mirror an already successful project in Sweden.
HIAL managing director Inglis Lyon said: "Our overriding priority is and will always be to deliver safe and secure air navigation services that will keep our airports open for local communities for the long term.
"Given the nature and location of our business and airports, we are already managing a number of challenges.
"These include staff recruitment and retention, increasing regulation and increasing pressure on costs.
"Our role is to ensure that the airport network benefits from investment in its long-term future, secured through new technology."
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 here