As part of its involvement in World Routes 2017, Routesonline spoke to Team Scotland to hear its route development plans.
Q: What have been your most notable route successes?
Our support has helped Scotland’s airports secure new routes to other parts of the UK, Europe, the Middle East and North America.
With many recent successes, some of the more notable achievements have seen Qatar launch flights between Edinburgh and Doha, Delta Air Lines launching routes from both Edinburgh and Glasgow to New York JFK, Glasgow securing WestJet’s first ever route to the UK from Halifax, Icelandair starting flights from Reykjavik to Aberdeen, and Inverness seeing the arrival of a KLM service direct to Amsterdam.
The Scottish Government will continue to promote Scotland as a destination which can sustain more direct air services and better global hub connectivity and we will continue to work with all Scotland’s airports to achieve these objectives.
Q: What are you next targets for route development?
Whilst we have identified a number of destinations that are of strategic importance to Scotland, with China, India and West Coast US ranking high on our list, we remain flexible to any opportunities that an airline or airport would wish to discuss with us.
It is important we continue to build on the successes we have shared with Scotland’s airports in both short- and long-haul routes, and given the attraction of Scotland, we will promote our country to those airlines we have identified as potentially filling our target routes.
Q: What is your main message at World Routes?
The Scottish Government operates a ‘Team Scotland’ approach to route development providing a single front door for aviation partners seeking public sector insight and support.
The team brings together a number of Scottish Government agencies to support the introduction of new routes, important for both business and inbound tourism.
We work in partnership with Scotland’s airports in a way which can be instrumental in an airline deciding to start a new route or develop an existing service, and we can provide support to airlines in the form of attractive cooperative marketing packages and also provide market intelligence and data on the potential of the Scottish market.
Team Scotland guarantees:
- Strong government support for new and expanding routes;
- An evolving, vibrant and competitive aviation/airport sector;
- No capacity constraints; and
- A strong and diverse economy.
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