UK sustainable aviation hub gets flight to London
Picture: Loganair
Of all the new air routes that have been announced of late, this one really caught my eye.
Scottish airline Loganair will be connecting London directly to Orkney, in the far north of Scotland, just off the northern tip of the UK mainland.
The flight won’t be nonstop, though, since it will land at Dundee (also in Scotland) along the way, but passengers bound for Orkney (or for London if flying south) won’t have to disembark during the stopover.
The new 3.5h service will operate twice weekly (Tuesdays and Fridays) from April 2023 between London City airport (LCY) and Kirkwall (KOI). It is not clear which aircraft will operate the service, but Loganair is also upgauging its Orkney to Edinburgh service to the 48-seater ATR-42 (up from Saab 340 that previously operated the service).
Picture courtesy of Loganair
Interestingly, there will also be an international route out of Orkney, to Bergen, on Norway, with a stopover at Sumburgh airport (LSI) in the Shetlands. This is a route with clear Viking reminiscences (back in the early middle ages, this same route was pretty much a sea highway for those Nordic warriors!).
Mention apart for flights to remote Fair Isle, a tiny islet in the middle of the North Sea half way between Orkney and Shetland. Is this the only regular flight in the world that is essentially used by birdwatchers?
Besides its naval heritage (Scapa Flow was a major Royal Navy base during the two world wars and its waters hold numerous wrecks), Orkney is emerging as an interesting hotspot for aviation watchers.
The Orkneys not only have the shortest regular commercial flight in the World (and a solid candidate to be the first, or at least one of the first, commercial air routes to be electrified), but they are also home to one of the UK’s top research centers in sustainable aviation.
The Sustainable Aviation Test Environment (SATE), currently in its second developmental phase “SATE 2” and funded by the Future Flight Challenge programme, is used as a testing ground by firms developing all sorts of technologies to decarbonize aviation, from hydrogen fuel cells to hybrid-electric propulsion, including some well-known names such as ZeroAvia, Ampaire and Loganair itself!
The Scottish carrier, that is now on sale after the owners decided to retire, has been an early backer of sustainable flight initiatives in the UK and has been also very proactive explaining the different initiatives it is taking part in, which he presents together on its site as the GreenSkies Programme.