Loganair celebrates 60th birthday – with many claims to fame

Plane Talk: Scotland’s airline has hosted no fewer than 22 inflight births (including a set of twins)

Paper round: newspaper delivery has long been part of the Loganair service (Loganair)

The headline from The Independent on 1 November 1995 announced a dramatic transformation for 10 million airline passengers annually.

“Charter flights ban smoking,” it read – though closer inspection revealed that the prohibition applied only for flights of under six hours.

With the exception of the occasional high-profile “air rage” event, often involving alcohol and/or a celebrity, the notion that smoking on planes was ever allowed seems fanciful (and I speak as someone who for some years puffed away down the back of the Boeing).

Earlier in 1995, Virgin Atlantic had banned smoking – and later claimed that it was the first UK airline to do so.

But Jonathan Hinkles, chief executive of Loganair, says his airline was 15 years ahead.

“We were the first UK airline to ban smoking inflight in 1980,” he told me. We were discussing this remarkably forward-thinking decision ahead of today’s significant birthday: the 60th anniversary of the carrier that styles itself “Scotland’s Airline”.

On a different dimension of inflight inhalation, Mr Hinkles added: “A milestone we’d probably prefer to forget in due course is that we were also the first UK airline to mandate the wearing of face coverings during the pandemic – throughout which we were one of few UK airlines to fly continually.”

Loganair was originally based at Renfrew airport west of Glasgow, which was closed in favour of the current international airport in 1966.

Claims to fame include:

• The world’s shortest scheduled service, timetabled to take two minutes between the Orkney islands of Westray and Papa Westray
• The world’s only scheduled service to a beach airport, Barra, in the Outer Hebrides
• The UK’s longest domestic air service, from Sumburgh in Shetland via Aberdeen and Manchester to Newquay.

Loganair currently flies to more UK airports – 34 in all – than all other airlines combined.

“We also led the way with mandatory environmental surcharges on air tickets in July 2021 with the launch of our GreenSkies programme,” says Mr Hinkles. The GreenSkies Charge of £1 on every ticket goes to offset the carbon emissions from every Loganair flight.

The carrier flies to four London airports. Three, you will have heard of: Heathrow, Stansted and City. The fourth is the airstrip on the Orkney island of Eday, which is officially known as London Airport.

“We fly there twice weekly,” says Mr Hinkles, “to deliver travelling teachers to Eday Primary School and the RBS Flying Banker to the island”. The role of Flying Banker is currently held by Lois Canning – only the third person to hold the position.

It is appropriate that the Royal Bank of Scotland provides banking services to outlying islands, because for 15 years beginning in 1968 Loganair was actually owned by RBS (initially known as the National Commercial Bank of Scotland).

The most fascinating statistic is that no fewer than 22 babies have been born inflight on Loganair aircraft – including a set of twins born 40 miles apart as the Islander aircraft flew between Lerwick in Shetland and Aberdeen in 1982. Increasing the passenger manifest by two during the course of a short flight is an impressive achievement.

The pilot that day – Captain Eddie Watt – is still with Loganair as the longest-serving flight crew member. And in a lovely twist, Chloe Stott, who joined Loganair as cabin crew four years ago, is the daughter of Katy Stott – the first inflight arrival for Loganair during a diversion from Kirkwall to Aberdeen in 1973.

Today, Loganair has 43 aircraft and 830 staff – including some former Flybe pilots and cabin crew. Jonathan Hinkles has planned the largest ever summer schedule. But no smoking.