Local branches of a public trade union have called Loganair’s decision to cut the morning flight to Inverness “corporate greed”.
UNISON Western Isles branches have condemned the regional airlines decision to cut the morning flight from Stornoway to Inverness, highlighting how vital the route is for patients, workers and broader island residents.
NHS Western Isles has already outlined the scale of dependence on this route, as at least 90% of patients and staff booked by the health board rely on the morning flight.
In 2025, that amounted to 1,364 patient journeys each way between Stornoway and Inverness, including escorts, with 75% relating to outpatient appointments designed as same-day returns.
Cameron Thompson, of UNISON's National Executive Council, said the cut exposes the rotten logic of treating essential public infrastructure as a commercial enterprise.
He said: "We have a private airline holding a lifeline route hostage to its profit margins and our communities suffer because of it. Loganair's corporate greed is on full display and capitalism is operating exactly as designed."
UNISON points out that: 'the consequences for healthcare are severe and well-documented. Outpatients now face compulsory overnight stays, day-case patients may need two nights away from home, frail patients, parents managing childcare, and workers at risk of lost income will carry the heaviest burden, and some patients will inevitably decline treatment altogether. This will not cost Mr Farajallah or other executives a wink of sleep as they happily rest their heads on piles of cash', the union says.
Cameron criticised Loganair's recent announcement by the airline that unveiled an order for a new all-electric aircraft, positioning itself as the first commercial airline in Europe to operate an all-electric fleet. CEO Luke Farajallah reportedly highlighted medical transport, blood and organ delivery, and island-to-mainland evacuations as potential use cases for the new aircraft.
Thompson said: "This is greenwashing most cynical. A vanity project that does nothing to allay the current struggles of islanders. Loganair parades electric planes and talks about medical transport while simultaneously gutting the morning flight that already performs exactly that function."
UNISON is now calling for an urgent examination of the public subsidies that flow to Loganair and whether those arrangements are compatible with a business model that withdraws from lifeline routes to remote communities.
"If public money supports this airline, and it does, then the public has a right to demand public service in return. Every penny of subsidy that flows to Loganair should be scrutinised. You cannot take public funds with one hand and gut essential services with the other, and that's on top of travellers paying well over the odds for the cost of a ticket, even with the ADS"
Cameron said the pattern is familiar to anyone living in remote communities.
"Essential services are treated as commercial propositions and when profitability dips the fat cats start cutting, ignoring the social cost,” he said. “The public will face the fallout and Loganair will walk away shielded by carefully managed press campaigns about innovation and green aviation."
UNISON has called on The Scottish Government, Highlands and Islands Airports Limited, and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar to intervene. The morning flight from Stornoway to Inverness is essential public infrastructure and no amount of electric aircraft pageantry compensates for removing the services that island communities need to survive.
