Air France KLM set to expand service from Scottish airports

Published on Saturday 21 June 2008 00:49

AIR France KLM is planning to boost its operations between Scotland and its two major European hubs, as long as oil prices do not soar too much further.

Christine Ourmires, general manager of the merged company for UK and Ireland, told The Scotsman she was finalising proposals to increase the frequency of flights from Scotland to Amsterdam and Paris.

And a new Scottish hub for the carrier could soon be on the cards, with Inverness touted as the most likely candidate.

But Ourmires added that Air France KLM needed to ensure that expansion was feasible in the current economic climate before formally announcing plans.

She said: "We want to see development in Scotland. We are in an uncertain environment with the rising fuel prices and we want to ensure that the development is consistent with the growth strategy."

The airline revealed that passenger numbers for its KLM flights from Scotland had risen 5 per cent in the year to the end of March as more travellers opted to use Amsterdam as a hub for onward travel to destinations worldwide.

The total number of passengers flying with the Dutch arm of the carrier from Glasgow, Edinburgh or Aberdeen was 791,192, compared with 758,726 the previous year. With Air France, the number of passengers for the first four months of 2008 almost doubled, from 24,169 to 47,144 – after the carrier's CityJet for Air France arm took over the former ScotAirways route between London City and Edinburgh and Dundee.

From Edinburgh and Glasgow, the most popular onward destinations include New York and Athens, while the booming oil and gas industry is driving growth from Aberdeen, where passengers most frequently fly on to oil towns such as Houston and Dubai.