Loganair to keep face coverings on flights to islands

Passengers using a regional airline to fly to a number of Scottish islands will need to continue wearing face coverings – despite any easing of restrictions this summer.

Loganair, which provides services to places such as Barra, Tiree, Islay, Benbecula and Stornoway, has said face coverings during flights will remain in place for all passengers and crew, except those with medical exemptions.

The company outlined the policy against a backdrop of mounting speculation of governments across the UK preparing to ditch the rule requiring face coverings to be worn indoors.

The airline said it was the first in the UK to mandate the wearing of face coverings on flights in May 2020 before it was legally required.

Loganair said because its route network spanned all four UK nations, a clear policy across the board was designed to ‘avoid confusion’ among passengers.

The policy will be legally underpinned by its ‘conditions of carriage’, the document of terms and conditions which underpins every airline journey in the UK.

Maurice Boyle, chief operations officer, said: ‘Safety and security is always Loganair’s top priority.

‘We believe that a consistent policy across our route network will provide assurance and confidence for each and every customer – and that confidence has been at the forefront of Loganair’s efforts to fly continuously throughout the pandemic to deliver essential connectivity across the UK.

‘Therefore, unless a customer is medically exempt from the need to wear a face covering, we’ll be keeping the requirement to wear one in place on every Loganair flight. We’ll keep this under regular review and communicate future changes when the time is right for those to be made.’