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HOLIDAYMAKERS are to be offered fewer direct charter flights from Inverness Airport next year because of a slump in the package holiday market.
There will be only nine summer charters from Dalcross in 2006 compared with 20 this year and 52 in 2002/03 when more than 10,000 passengers took advantage of the services to destinations including Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey.
The dramatic fall is blamed on the growing trend for people to take advantage of budget airlines to make their own holiday travel arrangements, rather than booking pre-planned package holidays.
A spokesman for Highlands and Islands Airports Limited admitted that the fall in the number of charter flights was disappointing but noted that the rapid growth in scheduled services with the rest of the UK had more than made up for this drop in business.
"A ll UK airports have seen the downturn in charter traffic, " he stated. "This is because of independent booking, where people shop around and book their own flights and accommodation, often over the internet.
"The sudden drop this year is a result of Transun withdrawing most of its programme from Inverness."
He pointed out that charter traffic now makes up only around 1.5 per cent of the more than 500,000 passengers to pass through the airport.
Next year, packages will be available to Majorca through Thomson Holidays in June and July and to Madeira in April and Verona in July with Newmarket Holidays.
Airline industry expert Laurie Price, a director of the Mott MacDonald travel industry consultancy, was not surprised by the downturn.
He confirmed the trend was for people to take advantage of low-cost connections to the country's main airports, which offered a far larger range of cheaper international flights than had ever been available from Inverness in the past.
But he said the economics of the airline industry meant there was little prospect of Inverness being able to sustain its own scheduled connections with the main holiday destinations.
"The low-cost airlines will be interested in linking Inverness with other UK airports but nothing further afield because their business is centred around filling the same seat six or eight times a day, " he explained.
"For that, they have to limit their flights to around two hours and unfortunately Inverness lies beyond that two-hour optimum level for many southern European destinations, so people are going to have to get to another airport for their connections."
No one from Transun was available to comment on the reason for the firm's withdrawal from Inverness.
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