THE 10, soon to be 11, airports operated by Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd (HIAL) have carried more passengers in the past 12 months than any previous year, writes aviation reporter Brian Smith.

HIAL, which runs more airports than any other civil operator in the UK, saw passengers rise by 80,000 in the past 12 months to 1,232,782.

That increase should be comfortably exceeded next year as a result of HIAL taking over the operation of Dundee Airport from September.

In addition to the existing ScotAirways service to London City and summer flights to Jersey and Guernsey, there is the prospect of a significant boost to passenger numbers from the recently announced flights to Birmingham and Belfast by flyWhoosh.

Predictions of up to 50,000 passengers a year using the new routes have been boosted by the initial response with more than 250,000 hits to the website and its bookings link being registered by the weekend.

HIAL, owned by the Scottish Executive, has now increased its annual passenger numbers by 57% since 2000/01.

Increases to the frequency of scheduled flights, new routes and the introduction of the Scottish Executive’s air discount scheme, have all contributed to the rise.

Their largest airport at Inverness recorded its busiest year, handling almost 700,000 passengers, after the introduction of new routes and all but one of the other airports recorded increases.

David Sutherland, HIAL chairman said, “A lot of hard work on the part of the airlines, stakeholders and the team at HIAL, under the chairmanship of my predecessor Sandy Matheson, has gone into achieving a very good result for the year.

“The real beneficiaries of this are the people who live in or visit our region for business or leisure—the people who have had access to better air services in the past 12 months.”