Airline hit by contractual penalties over 'performance issues' on Wick/Aberdeen route
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Highland Council has imposed contractual penalties on Eastern Airways after finding that the level of service between Wick and Aberdeen fell "below expectations" in May and June this year.
The local authority has had discussions with the airline over "recent performance issues" on the route and says it is confident that these have now been resolved.
The action taken by the council emerged after a Caithness man who has been a regular customer of Eastern Airways declared he has given up on the airline and will make the journey by road and rail instead.
Kevin Smith, an engineer with an oil and gas company, has been using the flights for work since they were reinstated more than a year ago but has become frustrated by the "unbelievable" number of delays and cancellations.
He claims other passengers feel the same way and has called for Eastern Airways to be "held to account" because of the public service obligation (PSO) on the route.
The PSO – funded by the Scottish Government agency Transport Scotland along with Highland Council – enabled the return of scheduled links from Wick John O'Groats Airport in April last year. The Aberdeen service had been withdrawn in March 2020.
Mr Smith (60), who lives in Halkirk, said: “I've only had about three flights on time in the last three months.
"I've got flights booked until the end of August, so I'll keep using them, but after that I'll not be booking any more. I'll take the car to Inverness and park it there and take the train."
He added: "It's a PSO, they're getting paid money for that route, and they should be getting held to account for it. They get subsidised by the Scottish Government for the PSO and they don't seem to care.
"If somebody from Highland Council went to Eastern Airways and said, 'Show us the reliability of that route compared to the reliability of the rest of your routes,' we'd be miles and miles behind. Wick is a sacrificial route."
Recalling his latest experience of a cancellation, he said: "I sat there [in Aberdeen Airport] and everybody I spoke to had multiple instances of late arrivals, cancellations, taxis, no information..."
The flight time from Wick is around half an hour, whereas Mr Smith says it will take him five-and-a-half hours by car and train to get to Aberdeen.
“When the flights started up again, when they got the PSO, we never saw a late flight – apart from weather, which you can understand," he said.
“It started off perfectly and then it just went downhill. In the last three months it has been unbelievable, it has got a lot worse.
“They don't seem to care and they don't seem to have any appetite to get it right.
“I know of four or five people that don't use it any more – people that I used to travel with all the time, and they said they couldn't put up with it any more.”
A council spokesman said: “Highland Council regularly monitors the performance of the service, including on-time performance and reliability. Over the course of the contract this has been in line with expectations, with on-time performance (within 15 minutes) averaging 83 per cent from April 2022 to May 2023, and reliability averaging 93 per cent over the same period – this includes cancellations due to uncontrollable events such as wind, snow and fog.
"The council does not review the performance of the operator’s other routes, but does regularly compare performance against the data collated by the Civil Aviation Authority on punctuality statistics for UK airports. We are content that performance on the route is comparable to that of similar routes operated across Scotland.
"We are aware that there have been recent performance issues on the service across May and June. The council has made it clear that this level of service is below expectations for the route and has levied contractual penalties as appropriate.
"We have held regular discussions with Eastern Airways to understand the reasons behind these issues and to ensure that a plan is in place to prevent recurrence. We are confident that issues over this period with maintenance and staffing have now been resolved, with a spare aircraft in rotation to help cover any technical issues across Eastern’s network, and a significant number of new cabin crew joining over July and August.
"The council’s project officer has weekly meetings with the operator to discuss a range of matters including route development, marketing and performance. The project officer and operator also meet on a monthly basis with local stakeholders to discuss the PSO route itself and the wider economic and social development opportunities arising from the provision of lifeline air services to the north Highlands.
"Both of these meetings have proven to be extremely positive and productive, and we are confident that the operator is engaging openly and positively both with the council itself and with stakeholders across the region.
"The contact details for the project officer for the Wick PSO are available on the council’s website and we welcome any questions, concerns or ideas relating to the PSO.”
At the time the Wick/Aberdeen flights were reinstated in April 2022, Mr Smith switched from an offshore job to working three days in his company's Aberdeen office and the rest of the time from home. Latterly he has been flying down on a Monday and coming back on a Thursday.
"When I was going down on a Sunday I could leave my house at half-past two and be in my hotel in Aberdeen in two-and-a-bit hours, which was brilliant – that's all I wanted," he said.
"I only took the job onshore last April because the flights were back on and I could fly up and down. I used to work offshore but they wanted me to come into the office to help out and I kept saying no. Then when the flights came back on I said, 'Yes, I'll do it, because I can fly down and fly home again.'
"But now I'm going to end up driving to Inverness and taking the train."
Mr Smith has no issue with the pricing structure. Last week it was announced that August will see a special rate of £49.99 per ticket being applied across every seat booked on the Wick/Aberdeen route.
"The prices are perfect – £50 each way, you can't go wrong," he said. "[But] if they want to make that flight successful, they have to make it reliable."
In June, the manager of Wick John O'Groats Airport told local community councillors that passenger numbers on the Wick/Aberdeen service were "not where we’d hoped, but definitely on the rise".
Mr Smith pointed out: "I've said it to Roger Hage [commercial director at Eastern Airways] in numerous emails – 'Don't moan about the usage of your flights when you're so unreliable. How is anyone going to be encouraged to regularly use your flights?'"
Caithness Chamber of Commerce was the initial driving force behind the business case for a PSO and worked with others in the Caithness and North Sutherland Regeneration Partnership to help secure funding.
Mr Smith said: "On the chamber of commerce LinkedIn page all you see is about the 'brilliant' service between Wick and Aberdeen. It's not brilliant. They obviously don't use it.
"When I contacted them directly I got an answer back saying it's not their problem, it's Highland Council and Eastern Airways."
Mr Smith has also contacted his local MP Jamie Stone and MSP Maree Todd. He said: "Jamie Stone has got back to me and wants to speak to me about the level of service."
Eastern Airways was invited to comment but has yet not responded. In an email to Mr Smith on June 30, a member of the airline's customer support team apologised for the disruption and told him: "I shall not begin to make any excuse for this period of poor on-time performance and reliability.
"We recognise the importance of the route for the economic development of the Caithness region and the vital link it provides for the community. Please be assured our senior leadership team are doing everything possible to revert to the levels of punctuality we all want to see."
