Transport / Loganair to expand London service after recording healthy passenger numbers across all services
LOGANAIR has achieved a 99 per cent reliability record on flying to and from Shetland over the last three months, the airline said on Monday.
Of the 1,119 scheduled, 1,107 flights have operated. The figures released by Loganair give no details about punctuality and exclude delays and cancellation due to weather conditions.
Meanwhile, overall passenger numbers on the various routes serving Sumburgh are almost back pre-Covid figures, while some routes have shown strong growth.
Amongst the routes recording growth is the key link to Aberdeen, now served by the larger 72-seat ATR72 aircraft, where passenger numbers are up by 20 per cent versus last July.
The largest growth has been recorded on the Shetland-Dundee-London route, where passenger numbers are some 56 per cent higher than last year.
This has resulted in the airline announcing an increase in the frequency from two to three weekly London flights in summer 2024, serving the route on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays in each direction.
Meanwhile, new larger aircraft have been introduced in the last month to the majority of Sumburgh’s services to Glasgow and to Inverness via Kirkwall, as the airline nears completion of its multi-million pound investment programme to replace its ageing Saab 340 aircraft with larger ATR turboprops.
Airline chief executive Jonathan Hinkles said Loganair had been supporting Shetland’s efforts to host the Tall Ships Races with extra flights and more seats laid on.
“Major events such as these underpin our year-round commitment to Shetland’s air services and our local employment at Sumburgh Airport, where Loganair employs a team of 36 to look after both our scheduled flights and regular flights delivering Shetland’s mail and servicing the offshore energy industry,” he said.
Meanwhile, Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL) said that Sumburgh Airport handled 81,262 passengers during the first three months of the 2023/24 financial year, a drop of 0.6 per cent on figures for the same period last year.
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