What is Inverness Airport?

Inverness Airport
IATA: INV – ICAO: EGPE
Summary
Airport type		Public
Owner		Highlands and Islands Airports Limited
Serves		Inverness
Location		Dalcross
Elevation AMSL		31 ft / 9 m
Coordinates
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
	ft	m
05/23			Asphalt
12/30			Asphalt

Inverness Airport (IATA: INV, ICAO: EGPE) is an international airport situated at Dalcross, 7 nautical miles (13 km) northeast of the city of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, United Kingdom. The airport is the main gateway for travellers to the north of Scotland with a wide range of scheduled services throughout the UK and Ireland, and limited charter and freight flights into Europe with passenger throughput of 700,000 in 2006.Inverness Airport Masterplan. It is owned by Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL) who own most of the regional airports in mainland Scotland and the outlying islands.

History

The airport was originally used by the Royal Air Force during World War II and was opened for civil operations in 1947. British Airways, then known as British European Airways, commenced flights to London Heathrow in the mid-1970s using a combination of Hawker Siddeley Tridents (jets) and Vickers Viscounts (4-engined turbopropos). By the late 1970s and early 1980s Inverness enjoyed two services a day to Heathrow. However, the airline axed the route in 1983 on the grounds of poor financial performance. Dan-Air inherited the service, offering a three-times daily service using initially BAC 1-11 jets followed in the early 1990s by Boeing 737-200 series equipment. The airline sustained the route adding links to Gatwick and Manchester in the late 1980s. These two new services were, however, operated on a daily basis and proved not to be successful. When Dan Air was bought by British Airways for £1 in 1992, the flag carrier retained the service for a further five years, adding a fourth daily frequency shortly before withdrawing the link, amid considerable controversey and public anger, in Autumn 1997. BA transferred the London service to Gatwick, operated by its subsidiary on a three-times daily basis using lower capacity BAe 146 regional jets. The emergence of Easyjet as a force in UK aviation also coincided with the launch of a daily service to Luton in 1996. Other destinations and airlines were added (Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, East Midlands, Leeds-Bradford, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle), particularly after 2003, where HIALs's marketing efforts were assisted by route development fund support from the Scottish Executive. Interestingly, the Heathrow link was re-instated in 2004, this time by bmi on a daily frequency.

The airport performs an important function within the Highlands and Islands network, functioning as a hub where flights between the islands and the central belt connect. In the 1970s, British Airways operated Viscount services on the network later downsising to Hawker Siddley 748s. These were then replaced by ATPs. BA continued to lose money on these routes and gradually transferred its operations to franchise carriers BRAL and Loganair. Today these services are all operated by Loganair under a franchise agreement with BA. Another emerging player is Inverness-based Highland Airways which operates links to Stornoway and Benbecula as well as providing mail servcies to all the islands. Links to the central belt have recently been lost. There are no longer any direct services to Glasgow after they were withdrawn by Loganair. Highland Airways' attempts to operate this service were very short-lived. There is a twice daily link to Edinburgh but flight times are not that convenient.

International services have never really taken-off at Inverness with the exception of the recently established link with Dublin. The now defunct Snowflake (low cost subsidiary of SAS) operated a twice weekly service to Stockholm in the Summer of 2004. This service was withdrawn after a short period of operations due to lack of demand. Days before 9/11, Scot Airways launched a service to Amsterdam - this was promptly withdrawn. KLM UK operated a daily service to Amsterdam via Edinburgh in 1997 but this too was short-lived, lasting only a few months. British Airways experimented with a Saturday only connection to Bergen in Norway (via Kirkwall and Sumburgh) during the summer season in 1990 but this too was withdrawn and never re-instated.

FlyBE have recently announced its intention to expand services out of Inverness Airport in 2008. In March, services will commence to Manchester, Birmingham and Southampton (competing with Eastern Airways on all three routes) while they also plan to launch two international services to Paris and Amsterdam in September 2008.

The airport terminal is notable as an early example of the Public Private Partnership favoured by the UK Government. HIAL was criticised for a PFI deal signed to build a new terminal at Inverness Airport. The deal signed by HIAL meant it had to pay £3.50 every passenger flying from the airport to the PFI operator. In 2006, the PFI deal was cancelled, costing the Scottish Executive £27.5 million. ^[1]

Airlines and destinations

• Aer Arann (Dublin)
• bmi (London-Heathrow)
• British Airways
• operated by Loganair Edinburgh, Kirkwall, Stornoway, Sumburgh)
• Eastern Airways (Birmingham, Leeds Bradford, Manchester, Southampton)
• EasyJet (Bristol, London-Gatwick, London-Luton)
• Flybe (Belfast City, London-Gatwick)
• Highland Airways (Benbecula, Stornoway)
• Ryanair (Liverpool [Ends in October], East Midlands)

References

• United Kingdom AIP

External links

• Inverness Airport
• Inverness Destinations

•  • [ e] Airports of the United Kingdom

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