Inverness, Sumburgh and Dundee among airports shut by strike

Inverness is one of the six airports closed

Six Scottish regional airports have been closed due to a one-day strike by air traffic controllers.

The Prospect union members are in a dispute with employer Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd (Hial) over plans to centralise some air traffic control.

Scottish government-owned Hial says it must modernise the service.

Benbecula, Dundee, Inverness, Kirkwall, Stornoway and Sumburgh airports were shut to all but emergency flights at 00:01 on Thursday for 24 hours.

The strike marks an escalation in industrial action started by Prospect on 4 January this year.

The action so far has involved an overtime ban and controllers refusing to work extensions to shifts except for search and rescue, emergency and medical flights.

• Warning of air traffic plan's impact on islands

• Dispute looms over centralised air traffic control

Inglis Lyon, Hial's managing director, said the strike was "extremely disappointing".

He said: "The disruption will impact our passengers, airline partners and the communities we serve at a crucial time in the recovery from the effects of the Covid pandemic."

David Avery, Prospect negotiator, said his members had been "forced into this escalation of industrial action to protect the communities they serve".

He said: "Hial's plan will remove high value skilled jobs from economies that can ill afford to lose them, having a substantial negative impact on those communities."

Transport Scotland said the decision to modernise air traffic control would ensure that air services could continue in the future, and would "improve resilience, safety and reliability of services".

A spokesman said: "Hial continues to engage with its staff, unions, airline customers and other interested parties as the programme is implemented."

The day of action has also closed Dundee Airport

Under Hial's proposed modernisation, air traffic control for Inverness, Sumburgh in Shetland, Dundee, Kirkwall in Orkney and Stornoway in Lewis would be controlled centrally.

Unmanned towers would feed information to the hub, located in an office building in an Inverness industrial estate.

The total associated employment across the five airports is about 76 full-time posts.

Hial, which runs a total of 11 airports, said its aim was to staff the new hub with existing air traffic services employees and has forecast that by 2027 the workforce could grow to 96 posts.

But the plans have led to a dispute with Prospect, which said some members were unwilling to move, meaning almost 50 could lose their jobs.

An independent impact assessment commissioned by Hial published in March said the plan would bring "very significant negative impacts" for islands communities in terms of the loss of "high quality employment" along with the loss of the economic benefits of the salaries involved.

The report said posts would also be reduced at Dundee, but its authors suggested the impact would be less severe due to the size of the local labour market.

Hial said an alternative modernisation plan would involve increasing staff at the different airports, but this was a more expensive option and would also add to existing recruitment challenges.

The company said it recognised the effect centralisation would have on the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland. It said it would commission a study into how its operations could be run in a way to lessen the impacts.