An airline has ended services to a famous Scottish island.
Hebridean Air Services, described as Britain's smallest scheduled airline, made the move because of low passenger numbers, it said.
The airline operates services from Oban to islands such as Coll, Tiree and Colonsay including routes subsidised by Argyll and Bute Council.
The route to Islay, famed for its natural beauty and whisky heritage, was not subsidised.
READ MORE: Glasgow Airport numbers surge
Martin McWilliam, of Hebridean Air Services, told The Herald: "The Oban – Islay service was never part of the subsidised services operated under the PSO [Public Service Obligation] contract with Argyll and Bute Council.
"When Hebridean Air Services took over this contract, following the demise of Highland Airways, the route was introduced and integrated into the scheduled routing with the flights to the Island of Colonsay but operated on a strictly commercial basis.
READ MORE: Airline giant quits Scottish airport
He also said: "The route has never been particularly profitable and with the fall in passenger numbers following the Covid epidemic we decided to persevere it in the hope the passenger numbers would pick up."
Mr McWilliam added: "Sadly, the passenger numbers continued to be poor and we regrettably took the decision to stop operating to Islay."
READ MORE: Scottish airport named for new subsidised flight route
The news comes as air travel recovers following the pandemic, with new routes launched from Glasgow and a link-up with Turkish Airlines flagged by the national flag carrier, the world's largest airline by countries served.
As Glasgow Airport reported a passenger numbers surge, Edinburgh Airport was named for a subsidy for a new route to La Palma in the Canary Islands.
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