Loganair flies into charter market with deal to buy Suckling

LOGANAIR continued with its diversification strategy yesterday by landing a deal to buy a charter flight operator once owned by Sir Brian Souter.

Scott Grier, chairman and controlling shareholder of Paisley-based Loganair, said the takeover of Cambridge-based Suckling Airways would allow his airline to move into the charter market.

Souter, chief executive of Perth-based transport group Stagecoach, and his sister, Ann Gloag, bought a 90 per cent stake in Suckling in 1999 for 5m and sold it back to the founders Merlyn and Roy Suckling in 2006 for a reported 10m.

Suckling Airways operated scheduled services from Dundee and Edinburgh to London city airport under the ScotAirways brand until 2007. The routes are now run by CityJet, part of Air France KLM.

Loganair has been diversifying away from its traditional scheduled services - which it operates throughout the Highlands and islands under a franchise agreement with FlyBe - by taking on freight contracts with Royal Mail and newspaper distributors as well as transfers for workers in the oil and gas industry. Now Grier wants to add the work carried out by Suckling, which runs charter and "ad hoc" flights for politicians, businessmen and football teams including Chelsea, Newcastle United and Norwich City.

He told The Scotsman: "Suckling will become one of our subsidiaries but Suckling will continue to trade under its own brand and with operational independence. They're doing a good job and we want to let them carry on doing that."

Loganair is buying the Cambridge company from managing director Merlyn Suckling, 62, who founded the airline in 1986 with her late husband, who died four years ago.

Grier added: "I'd known Roy and Merlyn since the 1980s and I've got a great deal of respect for them. It's hard to survive in this industry and I've always had a soft spot for survivors, like Loganair. I'm delighted Merlyn will be staying with us until the end of the year."

All 60 of Suckling's staff will join Loganair's 440 and Grier said he doesn't expect to make any redundancies. Suckling operates five, 30-seat Dornier aircraft, while Loganair has 20 planes.

Loganair was founded in 1962 and was one of four regional airlines - alongside British Regional Airlines, Business Air and Manx Airlines - to be demerged from British Midland as part of the break-up of Airlines of Britain Holdings in 1997.

The Scottish carrier notched up a profit of 2.5m in the 12 months to 31 March 2010, on turnover of 59m. Operating profits at Suckling were 1.5m in 2009 - the most recent year for which accounts were available at Companies House - on turnover of 11.4m.