Scottish airline Loganair cancels 300 flights and suspends summer schedule amid rising fuel prices

A Scottish airline has announced hundreds of flight cancellations and the suspension of its summer schedule amid rising fuel prices.

Loganair, the country’s largest regional airline, announced on Wednesday that it has scrapped 300 flights and that they are suspending flights between November 2022 and March 2023.

It means that services to Manchester, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Newcastle during this period will be completely suspended and planned summer 2023 routes linking Newquay with Teesside and Inverness will not return.

The airline, which is based at Glasgow Airport, blamed ‘short-sighted’ airport management for the reason behind the cancellations.

A spokesperson said: “It’s with a heavy heart that we’ve taken the decision to withdraw our entire winter Newquay programme and to curtail our summer 2023 plans too.

“Despite all of the challenges that the pandemic has delivered, we’ve worked incredibly hard over the last two years to build up our presence at Cornwall Airport Newquay.

“We’re most disappointed that short-sighted and short-term decisions by the airport’s management to incentivise unsustainable operations by other airlines leave no prospect of winter flights remaining viable, particularly against a backdrop of high fuel prices and rising inflation.

“In the meantime, we’ll be directing our efforts towards other UK regional airports such as Southampton, Exeter and Cardiff, where airport managements recognise and appreciate the enormous value that year-round, sustainable regional air services can bring to their communities and local economies.”

It comes after Loganair announced it would add a fuel surcharge to new ticket sales in response to increasing fuel prices across the globe.