Service delays raise concerns
At the beginning of 2022 Loganair was awarded a new five year contract to run the Royal Mail service into and out of Benbecula, a service that has been the responsibility of the airline since it began operations just over 60 years ago.
When the contract was renewed, new planes were ordered to replace ageing Saab 340 freighters. The four new ATR72-500 planes operate routes from Inverness to Orkney, Stornoway and Benbecula and from Aberdeen to Shetland, with a spare aircraft in case there is a problem in the network. The ATR72-500s have double the capacity of the old planes, allowing for a much higher volume of parcels for onwards delivery to households and businesses on the island.
Many local businesses rely on the service to fulfil next day delivery commitments, ensuring short shelf life products such as seafood get off the island as quickly as possible. The reliability of the mail service has been an issue for some local businesses, with one producer recently suspending postal orders due to ‘ongoing delivery issues with Royal Mail’.
Local GP surgeries and the Uist & Barra Hospital also rely on a prompt daily service to get blood samples up to Stornoway; when the plane doesn’t leave in the afternoon, alternative arrangements are not easy to find at short notice. A spokesperson for one local surgery commented:
“There has been an increase in cancelled or delayed flights. Some samples will ‘last’ but several (often important ones) will be spoiled and will need repeating.”
According to evidence seen by Am Pàipear, there have been 14 cancellations and 14 late arrivals so far this year, an average of almost one disruption a week.
Highlands and Islands Airport staff were on strike in February, which accounts for three days of cancelled flights, but the rest have been blamed on weather and technical issues.
Asked about the reliability of the service, Loganair CEO Jonathon Hinkles said: “Looking at performance over the last month, the only day where we had a problem was on Friday 7 July when low cloud across the Western Isles caused significant disruption to flights including the mail plane. Reliability of the operation has been at very strong levels.”
The data seen by Am Pàipear shows that the plane was also cancelled as a result of ‘technical issues’ on 29 June, just a week before the time period referred to by Mr Hinkles, and on 23 June.
There were also a number of late arrivals and cancellations during the winter months, when the lack of de-icing equipment at Benbecula Airport led to late arrivals or prevented the plane from waiting on the afternoon’s collections.
A number of Uist postal workers joined the Communication Workers Union (CWU) strikes towards the end of last year in a dispute over pay and conditions.
The strike concluded with the signing of a new deal that introduced regular Sunday working and later delivery start times, which Royal Mail says will help it meet the growing demand for next day deliveries.
Am Pàipear asked Royal Mail whether the changes would affect the islands service but received no reply. Loganair was not able to confirm whether the new deal would affect their current contract.
One of the issues raised during the strikes was the difficulty in approving overtime hours, of particular relevance here in the islands where postal workers are dependent on the arrival of the mail plane; cancelled flights, which lead to double loads the following day, and late arrivals result in longer delivery runs.
According to Mr Hinkles: “The Western Isles mail service operates Inverness-Stornoway-Benbecula each morning, six days per week and the aircraft and crew remain in Benbecula prior to an afternoon departure from Benbecula via Stornoway back to Inverness.”
But how exactly does it work?
INCOMING MAIL
Inverness: Post is loaded onto plane, with Uist and Barra mail at the back and Lewis and Harris mail at the front.
Stornoway: Lewis and Harris mail is removed from the plane and the aircraft continues its journey down to Benbecula.
Benbecula: Mail is sorted into vans for four different destinations: Barra, North Uist, South Uist and Benbecula.
Barra: Van for Barra connects with 1015 ferry from Eriskay.
North Uist: Van for North Uist goes to Lochmaddy.
South Uist: Van for South Uist goes to Lochboisdale.
OUTGOING MAIL
Mail is collected from Barra off the ferry arriving into Eriskay at 1150. Collections are made from island post offices and post boxes, arriving at the Balivanich sorting office to be collected for the mail plane leaving just after 3pm.
