Last week the airline's Chief Executive, Jonathan Hinkles, said: "The economic consequences of the war are also being felt keenly across the airline industry and the entire economy, given the very significant rise in worldwide fuel prices in recent days.
Loganair has already fixed the price for over 50% of its expected fuel volume for the 12 months from 1 April 2022 using financial hedging instruments. For the remainder of our fuel volume, the rise in global oil prices equates to an additional cost of £4.7 million in the coming year at today’s oil price. It is simply impossible for us to absorb this impact, especially where airlines including Loganair still face significant uncertainty over the pace of recovery in passenger numbers from the pandemic.
We’ve realistically no option but to introduce a fuel surcharge on new ticket sales, which will apply to new sales from 21 March onwards."
Loganair will add a surcharge of £3.95 per one-way journey, save for routes flown under Public Service Obligations. The company will include it in the displayed price on its website but will show it separately during the check-out process.
The personable Hinkles added: “This isn’t something that we wished to do, nor is it a step that we have taken lightly. Although it will be unwelcome, I trust that this represents a transparent response to worldwide circumstances which is preferable to an opaque, and permanent, increase in basic airfares.”
The surcharge may be reduced or even removed depending on the price levels of a barrel of Brent Crude Oil in future weeks.
Speaking about the crisis unfolding each day in Ukraine, Hinkles stated "The tragedy of war in Ukraine is all too apparent, and the human consequences of that are clearly – and dreadfully – visible. Last week, Loganair made contact with councils and regional Governments of the communities it serves to offer assistance with free travel across its route network for people displaced by the conflict. We stand ready to help in any way we can, and we’ve developed contingency plans to deploy our freighter aircraft to fly medical or humanitarian aid directly from Scotland to locations in eastern Poland if the need arises.
We have also taken every possible step to ensure that none of our supplier base or trading links benefits Russia or Russian interests in any way. I’m confident that there were, and are, no such links in place."
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