There’s less than a month to go until we officially begin ‘flying solo’ and what a journey it’s been so far. Last week our new tartan uniforms and aircraft liveries were officially unveiled, adopting a bold image to herald in a new era in our history. Feedback on social media has been tremendously positive, with our customers – old and new – giving it the ‘thumbs up!’.
The first passenger aircraft to be painted in the new colours is already working across the network and the uniforms will be rolled out to over 300 customer facing employees on September 1.
As we edge closer to that date, we’ve also been looking back upon our extensive history. Many people aren’t aware that Loganair is Britain’s oldest surviving airline, celebrating our 55th birthday this year.
You may recently have read about the retirement of Orkney engineer Bryan Sutherland, who started working for Loganair as an engineer 50 years ago, providing vital maintenance for the aircraft which serve Orkney. It’s milestones like Bryan’s which showcase our long history of operations in Scotland’s Highlands and Islands – one which we’re looking forward to extending for another half century.
Currently we are in our peak season; we’ve just celebrated our busiest July on record, carrying 80,000 passengers over a month – up 18% on the same period last year. Some of our most popular routes reported a surge in customers, with over 15,000 people flying to and from Kirkwall and 20,000 to Shetland.
The well-publicised but vitally important air-links to Barra and the Orkney Inter Isle service have also been extremely busy, as tourists accompany locals to these distinctive points of our 36-destination route-map.
However we’re by no means resting on our laurels! Over the coming weeks we’ve got a number of major announcements around additional routes, codeshare arrangements and increased connectivity from Scotland and beyond.
One thing that hasn’t changed is what we offer. We believe we are more competitive than any other airline operating to remote communities, providing 20kg of free baggage with every ticket, a range of tailored and discounted fares to meet community needs and an unrivalled number of services between the country’s islands and mainland. Plus we don’t charge you extra for paying by credit card.
I’d like to thank each one of our customers for their incredible support and recognise the fantastic hard work of Loganair’s team. They’ve consistently gone above and beyond as we progress towards operating in our own right – something which we are all tremendously excited about. Roll on September 1! To book tickets visit www.loganair.co.uk