Loganair has shone a spotlight on the all-female team leading its charter flight business, which is among the biggest of its kind in the UK. The services provided by the five women – Director of Charter Services, Fiona MacLeod; Head of Charter Services, Wendy Clark; Senior Charter Executive, Nicola McKimmie; and Charter Services Delivery Co-ordinators, Katie Helyer and Danielle Bavidge –account for about 15% of the airline’s revenue and total flight tally.
In a new episode of Loganair’s FlightLOG podcast, released today (Wednesday 8 March), Fiona MacLeod goes behind the scenes of Loganair’s charter services – revealing who uses the airline’s charter services and why. Fiona said: “I am very proud that Loganair is highlighting its chartered services for International Women’s Day. I work with a fantastic team of five, all women, with a wide breadth of experience, and we’re all passionate about what we do.
“Diverse, agile, and resilient, charter services contribute significantly to Loganair’s operations and played an especially important role in the pandemic when passenger services ceased.” Loganair has been moving goods on charter services since the airline was founded in 1962, initially delivering newspapers and pharmaceuticals to the Western Isles. It now operates around 4,500 charter flights with passengers and more than 4,000 cargo flights annually.
As well as delivering essential oil and gas workers to sites in the North of Scotland Loganair also counts several major football and rugby clubs, and F1 teams, amongst its bespoke charter service client base. Last year it transported the Lionesses to the Euros where they claimed their historic win. It was also the official airline partner to the Battle of the Brits tennis tournament, founded by Jamie Murray and flew both the Scottish and English teams to Aberdeen where Jamie and Sir Andy Murray played together.
In the podcast, Fiona reveals how the airline pivoted overnight during the pandemic to convert passenger planes into air ambulances. The aircraft, which were reconfigured by Loganair’s engineering team, had to be approved by the Civil Aviation Authority before being used to fly Covid patients from remote parts of the Highlands and Islands to hospitals on the mainland.
The airline also played a key role in transporting offshore workers from Eastern Europe to the North Sea, to crew emergency response vessels and keep the oil and gas industry safe. Fiona added: “Looking back, they were difficult times, but we did an amazing job during the pandemic. We almost became another emergency service, moving critically ill people very quickly to get the help they needed.
“As a team we feel very privileged to do a job that we love, and which makes a positive difference to our customers’ lives.” Episode 4 of Loganair’s FlightLOG podcast is available from today on all major streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple, Google and Amazon Music. The next episode will be released in April.
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