LEWIS residents have warned cuts to flights between Stornoway and Inverness will make it harder to work on the mainland, see family and access vital services, amid fears the route could eventually disappear altogether.
The National spoke to two islanders who have relied on the Loganair route for years to travel to jobs in the oil and gas industry on the mainland.
Murdo MacRitchie, who lives in Lewis but works in Aberdeen, has travelled between the island and the north-east for years.
He said the Stornoway-Inverness service previously ran three times a day, but the number of flights has gradually been reduced since the Covid pandemic, while changes to the timetable have made the remaining services increasingly difficult for commuters to use.
He said: “The timetable’s been done in such a way that it makes it quite difficult to use that flight.
“The offshore workers that commute from the island would like to be using it, but a lot of them over the years have just been unable to because of the timings.”
MacRitchie would previously fly to Inverness before continuing to Aberdeen, but now often flies to Edinburgh and takes the train north because previous cuts mean the Inverness timings no longer work for him.
Even when he has attempted to use the morning service in recent months, he said flights have sometimes been cancelled.
“You just couldn’t rely on it,” he said.
“It’s just part of a general gradual erosion of the service provision down the years.”
He said the latest cuts had raised fears over what could come next, describing the service as having gone from a “three-legged stool” to two legs and now one.
MacRitchie added: “It’s almost like the next cut will be the final one. That’s what the real fear is here.”
He warned that scrapping the route altogether would force more passengers to travel through Glasgow and Edinburgh, despite Inverness and Aberdeen being important hubs for people living and working in the north of Scotland.
The service also provides a key connection for islanders travelling to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.
MacRitchie said his late mother had travelled to the hospital for appointments and that, even before the latest cuts, the timetable left patients with a narrow window to make the journey in a single day.
He said: “By the time you get to Raigmore, if you’ve got a late appointment in the morning or early afternoon, you’ve got to be back at the airport in Inverness for just after half past two.
“You’ve got a very, very narrow window to make that a day trip, especially if you’re waiting in a hospital.
“I think they’re the most vulnerable group here.”
Fellow Lewis resident Murdo Thomson has travelled regularly between Stornoway and the mainland for more than 30 years, including around two decades commuting through Inverness for offshore work in Aberdeen.
He is due to begin a new job in Inverness in August and expects to travel there regularly for training over the next six months to a year.
Thomson said the cuts mean travelling to Inverness on a Monday morning and returning at the end of the working week is no longer a realistic option.
Instead, he expects he will often have to leave Lewis on a Sunday and travel by ferry, while getting home at the end of the week could prove even more difficult.
He said: “I’ll probably end up coming back on the Saturday, and then it gets to the point: is it even worth coming home?
“The chances are I probably wouldn’t come home. It just wouldn’t be worth it.
“That then has an impact on your family. I’ve got a grandson and I’d like to see a bit more of him,” he added.
Thomson says the flight cuts are part of a wider deterioration in connections to the island, with ferry services already making travel difficult.
He said: “I would say this is the worst it’s ever been in my living memory for getting back and forth.
“Fifteen, 20 years ago, you could get on and off the island far easier.
“That’s not something that should be the case in any Western society, where connectivity has gone backwards instead of forwards.”
Loganair reduced its services between Inverness and Stornoway from July 19, alongside cuts to flights connecting Inverness, Orkney and Shetland.
The Scottish airline said that “after reviewing all operational and financial options, we can no longer sustain the current level of service without impacting the wider business”.
While Loganair has stated that the route is “no longer sustainable” both men questioned whether the Stornoway-Inverness route had been given the best chance of attracting passengers.
MacRitchie said: “If you don’t put on a decent timetable, how on earth can you be encouraging passengers to use that?
“You put on a timetable which is unusable, it’s little wonder the passenger numbers are going to get hammered.”
He also raised concerns that reducing the service could strengthen the case for greater public subsidy to keep the route running.
Loganair has said it held extensive discussions with Scottish Government owned operator Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL) and other stakeholders before making the cuts and would welcome the opportunity to restore its full winter timetable “if appropriate support becomes available”.
MacRitchie said he was sympathetic to the Scottish Government’s position and questioned whether Loganair had done enough to make the route viable before seeking further public support.
He said: “I just worry that the whole thing is about trying to go for the PSO, the Public Service Obligation, and it’s an attempt to get money out of the Scottish Government.”
He added: “In the right circumstances, it should be a viable service. Have Loganair done enough?”
It is understood that Loganair is calling for the route to receive support through a Public Service Obligation (PSO).
PSOs allow governments to support air routes considered economically and socially important to communities where operating them on a purely commercial basis would not otherwise be viable.
Thomson suggested the cuts could put pressure on the Scottish Government to provide additional support.
He said: “You do get the feeling that there’s politics at play here as well.
“It’s almost like they’re looking to test the water, cut the flights, look to see the impact, see what the uproar is, and then the Government have to come in and subsidise, and then Loganair get what they want and we’re still left with the high prices.”
MacRitchie also said he believed Loganair had changed as it expanded its network across the UK, becoming less connected to its traditional Highlands and Islands routes.
He said: “I think Loganair is changing as a culture and I think they’re slightly weakening their ties to the Highlands and Islands.
“They’re looking much more domestically within the wider UK and they see that as the market they want to be chasing, which is a real shame.
“It’s going to be the rural parts of Scotland that suffer for that.”
MacRitchie echoed concerns about the wider decline in island connectivity.
“Inverness pitches itself as a gateway to the Highlands, but that gateway is getting firmly shut,” he said.
Loganair has been contacted for comment.
