Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond has pledged to restore direct airlinks with the Isle of Man - saying they are ‘far too important’ to lose.
Flybe’s franchise partner Loganair’s decision to scrap direct flights from Ronaldsway to both Edinburgh and Glasgow from this month was among the topics of discussion between Mr Salmond and Chief Minister Allan Bell.
The First Minister told a press conference today: ‘We’ve decided we intend to restore that link together and are planning to have it restore by the Commonwealth Games. It’s far too important.’
He said discussions would be held with potential commercial partners to restore the link by the summer of next year but that he hoped could be achieved ‘quicker than that’.
Earlier, Mr Salmond laid a wreath at the memorial on Douglas Head to the seven crewmen of the Solway Harvester who lost their lives when the Kirkcudbright-based scallop dredger sank off the coast of Ramsey in stormy seas in January 2000.
He told reporters that the Scottish fishing community would always appreciate the prompt and decisive action taken by the Manx government in raising the vessel from the seabed.
Later he was due to deliver the Chief Minister’s international lecture to more than 200 invited guests at the Villa Marina.
Mr Salmond, who was on his first visit to the island, said he was particularly impressed with the ‘cut out’ policemen used to deter speeding motorists - and quipped that if we could harness Scottish expertise in digital technology, we could together come up with the world’s first holographic policemen.
Joking aside, he said there were many admirable things about the Manx economy and many lessons that the Scottish government could learn.