Most expensive flight in Europe? That isn't even the most expensive fare on this route! If you fancied a quick trip to Stornoway this weekend it would cost you £256.63 from Glasgow

But if you could leave your trip until November you could do it for £112.03 or even a bit less depeding on date and flight. FlyBe (though these island services are actually provided by Loganair) uses exactly the same pricing model as Ryanair and EasyJet - the closer it gets to the departure date the more expensive the flight becomes. With the added disadvantage that the planes used on this service only have about 40 seats on them - few economies of scale to be had there. And there's a reason why there's no competition - there's no profit either.

The thing which really disgruntles the locals and any of us who have to use these service to travel to or within the Western Isles is that what in reality is the equivalent of the local bus service gets taxed in just the same way and at the same rate as any shorthaul holiday or business air travel does. Cut the air passenger duty etc on these flights and the fares would be noticeably cheaper. A manifesto commitment to that could be a winning promise for the SNP in the Independence Referendum These island services, just like the ferries are only kept going because of the subsidies and I'm still amazed that there are actually 2/3 flights per-day on this route at all. The fares on the ferries aren't cheap either for that matter and you've still got to add on the cost of getting to Ullapool from Glasgow or wherever in the first place.

Personally, I would guess that the most expensive route per mile is probably the short hop to Barra - where you don't even get a runway for your money - just a minibus with wings that lands on the beach when the tide is out! A few years back it made one of my student's day on his fieldwork placement in Stornoway when his supervisor told him to make sure and remember to bring his passport or driving licence with him for the next team meeting because it was being held on Barra and he'd need photo ID for the plane. Shortest flight he's ever been on but probably the one that most impressed him

SM

SMa. It's quite shocking! A relative of mine had to fly to SY at short notice for a funeral and had to pay over £300 from Edinburgh. There are now 11 or 12 flights a day landing at Stornoway and the fares just keep on rising! It is almost impossible for a family to fly from SY to the mainland when going on holiday abroad as they could have another holiday abroad for the cost of their local flight! The lowering of fares would pay the company involved as they could fill their seats instead of flying half empty planes. I've been told that it is almost as expensive to fly from Inverness to Stornoway which only takes 30 minutes!

None of what you say surprises me - the routes to Stornoway are usually triangular ones - Glasgow/Edinburgh - Stornoway - Inverness and back to Glasow/Edinburgh or the reverse. But I've never flown to/from Stornaway from either Glasgow or Edinburgh on a half empty plane and I think that it is a more complex issue than just getting bums on seats.

This is a perennial problem when it comes to public transport (trains and buses as well as planes) throughout the Highland and Islands and the balancing act between providing a service to a very small population that is never going to be economically viable if market forces alone were what governed prices, subsidising the route so that fares aren't even higher, and allowing the companies who operate them to make a big enough profit so that it's worth their while to keep services going to these remote islands and glens. I don't know what the solution is - Loganair is not a hugley profitable airline and has had some close calls over the years re being able to keep afloat.

If there was a way of making money out of these services Michael O'Leary would have been desperate to get his foot in the door but he simply isn't interested. Despite overtures from Dundee City Council to him about running services from what is my nearest regional airport he simply isn't interested. The runway isn't big enough for the planes in his fleet and he can do the maths - he too can see that he can't make a profit serving regional airports in Scotland apart from the big hubs at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Prestwick. He doesn't even provide much of a service out of Aberdeen these days.and nor does EasyJet.

It's simply a fact of life - only 10% of the UK population live up here in Scotland and the majority of them live in the central belt corridor with Edinburgh and Glasgow at either end. The rest of us are a very small and, yes, captive market - there simply aren't enough of us to be able to benefit from the economies of scale that have made cheap, mass market air travel a taken for granted feature of 21st century life for the majority of people in the UK.

sM

Unfortunately SMa you are correct. Michael O'Leary has been approached before now about flying to Stornoway, but not interested as he says the landing charges are too heafty. He certainly cannot say that the runway in Sy is not long enough for his planes as a while ago an American Airways 767 landed there with an ill passenger! I think islanders are really hard done by with all forms of transport, even at home having to pay extortionate prices for fuel but hey, there are also lots of compensations for staying there!

But maybe the Stornaway landing fees and handling charges are just far too excessive.

Rightly or wrongly if a region or airport want the likes of Ryanair to serve their community they have to prove to Ryanair that it is worth the efoort of flying the B737into and out of.

If Stornaway really cared about an increased service to include the likes of Ryanair they would have to prove that it is (frankly) worthy. Until then the smaller aircraft plying this destination will continue to utilise high yield pasenger costs.

Was it not just fairly recently (like last decade) that Stornaway actually allowed a Sunday Service?

Nivsy.

But maybe the Stornaway landing fees and handling charges are just far too excessive.

Hardly, Western Islands Council already subsidises the airport's running costs in order to keep it open. With a population of 9,000, Stornoway has the highest concentration of people in the whole of the Outer Hebrides - which means that the other 17,000 inhabitants of the Western Isles are spread very thinly indeed. Given that Dundee has a population of 143,000 and a large transient student population due to having two Universities within the city boundaries and St Andrews just across the Tay (with some very rich students both past and present!) and a Council that has tried to repeatedly to induce Michael O'Leary to use Dundee airport with lower fees etc but is still not regarded as an attractive proposition by him, I can't imagine what Western Isles Council could possibly do to attract him short of actually paying him to run the service.

The fact is that a catchment population of only 26,000 people spread around an archipelago of islands will never generate the sort of traffic that will keep the likes of Ryanair happy. Especially when the population is falling and most adults earn below the national average wage relying on crofting, weaving and fishing (often all three) for an income. And inbound tourists are never going to come in any great numbers, no matter how low the fares, until the Council is also able to do something about the weather

SM

digby,

If you think thats expensive, try private charter. It's several thousand per hour depending on aircraft type. For example, a CJ2 from Manchester to Paris, about an hours flight is around £5,000 return!

Darren

Was it not just fairly recently (like last decade) that Stornaway actually allowed a Sunday Service?

It is only relatively recently that ferries and planes have run on a Sunday. On both the predominantly Catholic islands like Barra and the predominantly Free Church ones like Lewis (where Stornoway is located) the majority of the population have kept Sunday observances that most of us no longer bother with. There was a lot of opposition to the changes because many people on the islands didn't want Sundays to become just another day. On one level I can understand that there are those who think it's about time that what they see as out of date practices such as not working or not travelling great distances on a Sunday should be abandoned, on another I can equally sympathise with those who see this as an erosion of the strong Gaelic, Christian culture of the islands.

CalMac now do run ferries on a Sunday on most of their services now, but just as with public transport in my local area on the other side of Scotland, it is usually a reduced service on a Sunday compared to weekdays. But this is as much to do with levels of demand as them being refused permission to run them. Church attendance is still higher in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK and especially in rural areas where old traditions are maintained and not everybody wants Sunday to be just like any other day. Those traditions are part of the charm and sense of the quieter, slower, more old fashioned pace of life that is a major part of the attraction for many visitors to island and highland regions. Lose those things and you potentially lose what brings so many visitors who are vital to lcaol economies in the first place. It's not any easy conundrum to solve.

SM

Interesting replies here. I cannot argue the pros and cons but just what appears to ordinary travellers like myself to be a rip off. I have no idea how many folk would need to be flying to make it pay, but I do know that the airport on their website state that 130,000 passengers fly per annum. Recently the number of near misses is now a big worry due mostly to RAF tornadoes flying around when planes are due to land, plus 2 incidents of emergency landings, the last one being last Friday! No wonder I'm a nervous flyer!

SMa wrote:

But I've never flown to/from Stornaway from either Glasgow or Edinburgh on a half empty plane and I think that it is a more complex issue than just getting bums on seats.

This is a perennial problem when it comes to public transport (trains and buses as well as planes) throughout the Highland and Islands and the balancing act between providing a service to a very small population that is never going to be economically viable if market forces alone were what governed prices, subsidising the route so that fares aren't even higher, and allowing the companies who operate them to make a big enough profit so that it's worth their while to keep services going to these remote islands and glens.

I used to live in Moray and within the last couple of years they were talking about cutting an evening service that meant people could no longer get to/from work or home.

digby wrote:

It is almost impossible for a family to fly from SY to the mainland when going on holiday abroad as they could have another holiday abroad for the cost of their local flight!

SMa wrote:

The thing which really disgruntles the locals and any of us who have to use these service to travel to or within the Western Isles is that what in reality is the equivalent of the local bus service gets taxed in just the same way and at the same rate as any shorthaul holiday or business air travel does. Cut the air passenger duty etc on these flights and the fares would be noticeably cheaper.

The locals and anyone who lives in the remotest parts of the highlands as their MAIN resident - are entitled to a card that gives them a 40% discount on a route to Aberdeen, Inverness, Glasgow or Edinburgh. Thats Western Isles, Shetland, Orkney, Caithness and NW Sutherland.

I don't know how well advertised it is to people who live there though.

Hi Helenllama, I think that probably everybody who is entitled to it probably knows about the air discount scheme for local residents but as you say, your main residence has to be within the Highlands and Islands in order to be eligible for one. This means that young people who've had to move away in order to find work aren't entitled to one and they have to pay the full whack when going back to visit family etc as Digby's relative found.

And the discount only applies to the 'core fare' and not to any taxes, fees, charges and surcharges which still have to be paid in full and they can add up. So the price you pay isn't actually reduced by 40%. And I'm not sure how they go about policing or enforcing it but business related travel is specifically excluded too

As a scheme designed to facilitate a better level of social inclusion for individual scheme members, the ADS is not intended to extend to business-related travel. The Scottish Government has announced that business related travel will not be reimbursed under the scheme. Business related claims are considered any journey where there is a business component, regardless of whether there is also a leisure-related component.

I would assume that this means, for example, that people who work out on the rigs can't use their discount cards for travel to Aberdeen at the beginning and end of their 2 week shift. I know that they do get paid well compared to many but having to pay at least 1 return airfare a month still makes a noticeble hole in a monthly salary.

I don't have any solutions but I do know that it's a problem.

SM

Just in case it's of interest to anyone, I had an email from Flybe this afternoon announcing a seat sale this weekend (Fri to Sun) with a 25% reduction on all seats on all flights to Stornoway and Benbecula.

David

So did I David! And I've just priced up exactly the same flights for this weekend as I priced up for my post last Friday - and the cheapest fare going out tomorrow from Glasgow and getting the Sunday evening flight back from Stornoway came out at £231.16 compared to £256.63 for the same flights for last weekend. By my reckoning that's only 10% cheaper! And the return flights Edinburgh/Stornoway were 26p more expensive than they were last weekend

SM

Hi SM ... the email is a bit confusing. There are two ways of reading it, and I think we have perhaps both picked a different one !
Are you reading it as if the seat sale is on now, for travel this weekend only ? The Book Now button may support that theory.

But I am reading it as if the seat sale starts tomorrow and lasts until Sunday, giving a 25% reduction this weekend on all forward bookings to Stornoway & Benbecula. The mention of a festival in July makes me think that is the case.

David

I think that your reading of it is probably the correct one David in that I didn't think it was just for this weekend but didn't note either that the discounts wouldn't be being applied just yet. It will be interesting to play around with it and see what does come up.

When this FlyBe service was first introduced the fares where as little as £24 each way from Glasgow - I know because I had a student on placement in Stornoway at the time and it made it much cheaper for both him and the University. He could afford to come home for the weekend more frequently and the travelling expenses for his tutor visits were lower than they'd ever been for the Western Isles. I can't see them ever returning to those sort of prices and it has made it harder to persuade students to go on placement there now if they aren't from the Western Isles in the first place. The University will pay for two return fares for them - travelling there and back at the beginning and end of the placement as well as one trip home in the middle. But making do with only one trip home on a 4 month placement is hard when the bright lights of the city are calling

SM

I wonder if this is also a record? Heard on the news tonight that the MP for the Western Isles has been in touch with Loganair regarding the Stornoway flights having to make emergency landings 5 times in the last 9 months. Scary stuff!