Troubled Scottish airline Loganair has announced the appointment of a new operations director after it emerged the incumbent in the role has been off work since June.
Industry veteran Maurice Boyle has taken over the role of director operations for the airline since Phil Preston, the airline’s chief operating officer, stood down from the role for health reasons.
A spokesman for the airline insisted it has not been “a rudderless ship” without the support of senior personnel in Mr Preston’s absence.
Prior to Mr Boyle’s appointment at the end of October, the firm had Lorna Bruce in place since June. The former Eastern Airways operations executive joined Loganair on a temporary contract basis to run a project aimed at improving efficiency and reliability. She stepped into the role of operations director when Mr Preston went on leave.
Mr Boyle, who has 35 years of commercial aviation experience, said: “I’m proud to join the team that chief executive Stewart Adams has assembled and know that we can restore Loganair’s punctuality performance and passenger confidence.”
The airline has been plagued by technical problems and poor reliability in recent weeks sparking concern amongst passengers, pilots and politicians.
Just this week a Loganair plane travelling from Glasgow to Sumburgh with 13 people on board was forced to make an emergency landing in Aberdeen.
The incident came after an Inverness-bound flight turned back to Manchester due to a warning light and then a damaged propeller grounded a plane at Stornoway the week prior.
In October, the British Airline Pilots Association raised concerns about the safety of Loganair’s planes. An internal letter from the union, sent to the airline’s chief executive Mr Adams, complained that aircraft were “being returned to the line despite being unserviceable” and in some cases “aircraft retain defects that clearly affect flight safety”.
Speaking in September to the transport committee of Western Isles Council, who called Mr Adams in to explain the airline’s ongoing problems, he admitted: “Long delays have increased significantly since April. The three-hour delay figure needs to decrease dramatically.”
Highlands and islands MSP David Stewart said many of his constituents were “concerned” about the service, while Shetland MSP Tavish Scott branded the service “the worst it has been in 15 years”.