How reliable is Loganair

Loganair fly into some small airports in remote locations in small aircraft. Their service can be affected by weather quite often. It's entirely possible that your flight may be delayed, especially in the highlands and islands. I flew Glasgow to Exeter with them once years ago and it was fine.

I just did a trip to Orkney and Shetland in August. I flew from the US West to Amsterdam and on to Aberdeen. I overnighted 2 nights in Aberdeen to give myself some flex time in case of delays on my Delta/KLM flights. I then flew from Aberdeen to Kirkwall on Loganair, flew Kirkwall to Sumburgh (Shetland) a week later and Sumburgh back to Aberdeen the week after that. All flights were more or less on time. No delays or cancellations. I had beautiful sunny skies for all 3 flight days.

HOWEVER, I’d worked myself into a frenzy by reading the FB page called Delays and Cancellations to Orkney and Shetland. There are delays and cancellations every day and not always related to weather. The “reports” on there list a lot of cancellations for mechanical issues. It’s not always the same folks reporting delays either.

If I go back, I’ll give myself at least 2 nights somewhere in Scotland again and work it so I can have the ferry as a back up both going and coming. I am a terrible sailor, lol. I will also give myself more flex coming back rather than just one day before an International flight.

The locals indicated for Shetland the flights have better weather midday. There is often fog in the AM.

I might have some advice if you tell us more about your plan.

I have flown Loganair numerous times including last month. As was stated earlier in the thread, they can be affected by weather, especially in and out of smaller airports.

Thank you, everyone for the replies. I'm putting in some extra days around the departures and arrivals, and can deal with delays. I understand about bad weather. But if a flight was cancelled, that interferes with rental cars and hotel reservations. I'm not sure how flexible those people would be, especially the rental cars.

Most problems were for flights being cancelled for lack of enough passengers and people being told they had to take an earlier flight sometimes by a day or two earlier. I couldn't do that.

I was mostly looking at Aberdeen to Kirkwall/Orkney or Edinburgh to Kirkwall.

And I'm trying to decide the best time to order tickets. It would be for mid-May 2024 flights.

If I do a flight on a Sunday there is only one flight that day. So when its booked up that's it. Makes me want to order right now. Do you all think I should I wait? And if yes how long?

Thanks again.

You need to talk to the car hire company and to the hotel about their flexibility policies.

They are well used to living and working on islands in the North Atlantic, so they know the inherent problems that brings.

With one flight on the Sunday it is pretty unlikely that it is not going to run for lack of passengers- supply has been tailored to demand.
That is especially so if visitors are booking seats on small aircraft 7 months ahead- so pushing up the dynamic fares for the locals who are not able to book with such enormous advance timescales.

Being a Sunday flight, if the flight was cancelled, then get yourself to Aberdeen for the evening Northlink ferry to Kirkwall- it will get you in at just before midnight. The ferry can sail in many circumstances when the plane can't fly.
BUT Kirkwall is not an easy port to get into, so sometimes Kirkwall has to be omitted and the vessel has to sail direct to Shetland.

In heavy weather I have been as much as 8 hours late on the ferry arriving into Kirkwall, because we couldn't get out of Aberdeen due to the swell at the harbour bar.

Did I complain on internet forum or demand compensation? Not on your life. That day I got to enjoy a rare daytime passage from Orkney to Shetland, at full speed in still very lively seas- more than adequate compensation.

Bear in mind that, if your flight was cancelled there may be capacity issues in the next day or two.

You totally need to be flexible going to somewhere like Orkney/Shetland and not over schedule.

Southbound be prepared for the possibility that you might have to divert onto the Stromness to Scrabster ferry if things went really pear shaped, then make your way back south on the A9- or even stay on Orkney an extra one or two nights.

I have flown Loganair flights that had 10 people on it and I have flown on Loganair flights that were full. You need to keep an eye on the flights you want to take. You may not have to book this early but as more people book, the higher the prices go.

Some Loganair flights are multi-stop. In August I flew from London to Dundee. It was almost full. The flight continued on to Stornoway. Only about ten of us who got on in London got off in Dundee while the rest remained on board for Stornoway.

I like Loganair and think they are more reliable than some rail services--especially with all the strikes.

Just be aware that onboard service consists of your choice of coffee, tea or water and either some shortbread cookies or Tunnochs caramel wafers. That's it.

I’m glad to see that not everyone has trouble with Loganair. But if there are problems, it’s good to know the car rental places in Edinburgh are more likely to be sympathetic if my return flight is delayed or cancelled. If I go through there, which I’m leaning more toward now, I plan on using Arnold Clark, and they were great to deal with last time. Of course, I will talk to them when reserving. Same with hotels.

Like I said, I can deal with delays. It’s a cancellation that would give me issues. If it got so bad that I had to take the ferry from Stromness to Scrabster, what car rental places are at the Scrabster ferry terminal? I tried looking online, but nothing came up. It would be the same if a flight to Orkney were cancelled. Is there train service to Scrabster? And do the ferries book up a long time in advance? That would be another issue.

Also, I’m not someone who will give a bad review for a delay, especially if it was for weather, but I might need to make a claim if there is a cancellation. I understand the EU has compensation policies for cancellations, but does the UK have them too, especially for flights within the UK?

I will keep checking flights from here on out and just book when I see a price that I can handle. And I’m not worried about onboard food. Its such a short flight. But I wouldn’t book the upper tiers just for that. Lol

In my completely non-scientific looking at cancellations in and just before I flew from Aberdeen, it seemed like the Aberdeen-Kirkwall flights had fewer cancellations than the Edinburgh-Kirkwall flights due to mechanical issues (not weather related). That could have been random or not.

The GOOD thing about leaving from Aberdeen is that there is the ferry. At present the Northlink ferry runs on Sunday nights, leaving at 1700 and getting to Kirkwall at 2300.

https://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/

I'm not sure where you are planning to stay but if you stayed in Kirkwall on Sunday night you could book your rental pick up for Monday. I'll agree with Stuart that the airport rental car site is going to be 100% aware of what is going on with flights and undoubtedly has a system in place. The rental cars are just at one end of the regular parking lot and that is where you return them as well.

BTW, I had a wonderful stay at The Sands Hotel on Burray since you have a car. The rooms were very nice, people (owners and staff) were awesome and welcoming and the food was terrific. I stayed there 7 nights in August. My taxi driver from the airport reported that he and his wife go to the Sands for special meals and love their fish and chips....which they refer to as "whale" and chips as the portion is huge.

The trains run to Thurso- Scrabster is the port for Thurso- about 2 miles from the station- a taxi ride.

Stagecoach also run coach-buses direct from the port to/from Inverness, which can be booked on Scottish Citylink, or just turn up and pay on the bus. (It is a Stagecoach/Citylink 'code share')

For Foot Pax it would be very, very unusual (especially in May) for them to book out- maybe for cars, not for foot pax.

There is also another ferry from Gills Bay (on the way between Thurso and John O'Groats) to St Margaret Hope- Pentland ferries.

On Northlink you can have Bed and Breakfast on the ferry overnight while she is tied up at Stromness to avoid having to be there early for the first sailing.

Between Thurso and Wick (the next town round the coast) there must be car hire available. But if you were re-routing due to a Loganair cancellation then it would be worth asking them how they intend to get you back to your point of origin. Under EU law they have an obligation to do so.

Thank you isn31c and Pam! That's a lot of great information and I will keep it handy for when/after I finally book my flights and while I'm traveling. And I'm glad to see that Loganair would be responsible for getting me to my final stop. I figured any UK rules applied to the small airlines inside the UK too but wasn't sure. I'll just hold my breath and hope all goes well on my flights!

If you did have to route through Scrabster another way back to Aberdeen is the Eastern Airways government subsidised flight from Wick Airport to Aberdeen- a morning and an evening flight daily Monday to Friday at the fixed price of £49.99.

The 50 minute flight is far better than the long road or rail journey back to ABZ.

You could even do that as a planned route to Orkney- morning flight from ABZ to Wick, bus/taxi to one of the ferries over, then bus into Kirkwall. Car rental next day.

Likewise end the car rental at Kirkwall the evening before you leave, then next morning the same combo back for the evening flight south.

I was in Orkney and Shetland in July and had seven Logan Air flights. All were on time.

One time when we were taking a tour on Westray, we were delayed getting started because a couple of the people on the tour were flying in that morning and their flight was late by a half hour or so.

You just never know with the weather. Some of our flights were on quite windy days and I was almost hoping they would be canceled! But they took off with no problems.