Readers in the Western Isles will have to wait until at least the afternoon from now on to get their favourite newspapers in their hands.

Publishing industry chiefs claim a planned hike in air charter charges would have cost them about £6 to send each copy of the thousands of daily newspapers to the Outer Hebrides.

The hunt is now on to find a lower-cost carrier or an alternative to the early morning “paper plane” which could see bundles being sent by seaplane or even by speedboat.

For the last three years, daily papers were flown from Aberdeen to Stornoway and Benbecula using a Loganair charter flight. Now the plan is take to them by road instead to Ullapool to catch the ferry to Stornoway which will arrive just before lunch.

Extra distributors have been hired to take the papers directly to outlying areas of Lewis and to the Isle of Harris. A postbus will take them to Uig. But many readers in the islands will not get their daily paper until late afternoon or, if there are any delays, until the following day.

That has angered many people in the islands, where newspaper readership is thought to be higher than the national average, who claim that it is a serious step back.

Retired mill worker Malcolm Mackay, 74, has been heading into Stornoway six mornings a week for a decade for newspapers for himself, his wife Ina, and four neighbours. He said: “I’m disgusted. This is the kind of shoddy service we had in the 1950s. You get the impression the people who make these decisions don’t care about the Western Isles. The service to Shetland of course is continuing with no problems.”

Island councillor Rae Mackenzie stormed: “It is extremely disappointing to find out that another service is being hit in these islands. It is just weeks since the council withdrew air services to the Southern Isles, taking us back 40 years, and now it seems we are going to have a service for the delivery of daily papers which turns the clock back to the 1950s. Scottish newspapers will be available in foreign countries earlier that we can receive them in our own country!
“Whereas the rest of the world is looking for faster, more efficient, services, we seem to be going backwards. This is out of the hands of the local shops and suppliers. Is it not possible for both Loganair,and the mainland wholesaler to come to some agreement? After all, no doubt they have made considerable profits in the past from these islands.”

The Scottish Newspaper Society (SNS), which represents all the main daily newspaper publishers, insists it has been trying to find a cost effective way to take the 7,500 daily newspapers to the islands – so far without success.

It has emerged that Glasgow-based Loganair planned to increase the price twice in the near future, virtually doubling the current cost.

SNS director Jim Raeburn explained: “The industry regards it as very important to provide a service as best it can and to have papers selling in the islands at the same price as the rest of the country. However, the cost of a copy of a newspaper delivered by Loganair would on average have risen to about £6.”

Such a price would be completely non-viable, he said, and had forced the industry to look at what they could do. The papers will now be transferred from wholesaler John Menzies in Inverness to the islands by road and ferries.

Bundles of papers for North Uist, Benbecula and South Uist will be sent on the ferry MV Hebrides from Skye to Lochmaddy. Every second day, it arrives later so the papers will not reach the southernmost islands until after the shops shut.

Mr Raeburn brushed off suggestions that they were not serving the islands well. He said: “We are maintaining a service to all of Scotland – the only difference will be time of delivery. We are doing our most to maintain a service and to avoid quite dramatic losses. The element of subsidy that would be needed would be unsustainable.”

He declined to say how much the airline was to charge – saying only it was “a large amount”.

However, Scott McCulloch of News International, the chairman of the SNS distribution committee, confirmed that 7,500 copies were sent to the Western Isles each day. If each one was to cost SNS about £6, that would suggest the airline’s charges were to rise to more than £40,000 a day.

Loganair chief operating officer Phil Preston would not comment on the specific point-of-sale price increases for individual units transported as freight cargo, with air transit only making up one part of the overall distribution network.

He said: “We came to a mutual agreement with the newspaper distribution committee SNS to end our Stornoway and Benbecula contract. The dedicated freight charter service, which we have been providing for SNS since the previous supplier Highland Airways went out of business, has become unsustainable for both parties.
“The contract with SNS was operating at a heavily discounted rate, following the collapse of Highland Airways, in anticipation of finding customers wanting to move freight off the island by air on the return leg of the freighter’s journey. We are disappointed no such customer has been available in the three years which the service was operational and the cost of the empty return leg to Aberdeen was a major factor in this decision.”

There will be no job losses at Loganair as a result of the decision and together with SNS, they had worked to find an alternative distribution channel by air but SNS had decided to use the CalMac ferry service. The changes will have no impact on any of the airline’s scheduled passenger services or their dedicated Royal Mail freight deliveries to the islands.

Mr Preston added: “Loganair still has a strong relationship with SNS, using their services to supply the Shetland Islands with newspapers and we look forward to working with them well into the future.”

Stornoway councillor Angus McCormack thought people in the islands were very keen to have a daily paper to read but were equally keen to read it at as early a time in the day as possible. He said: “I would welcome some discussion around just exactly what Loganair is looking for in terms of the return trip to see if a solution might be found. I understand that moves are afoot to speak with the distributor.”

Uist councillor David Blaney questioned why the papers could not be put on Flybe’s scheduled passenger flights from Glasgow to Benbecula. He said: “For long enough papers would always share the passenger flight from Glasgow as they carried on doing on Saturdays and Sundays. So I do wonder why papers to the Uists and Benbecula cannot revert to sharing direct flights from Glasgow as they always used to.”

Meanwhile Mr Raeburn conceded that delivery of newspapers to the islands was always loss-making but something the industry had been happy to do until costs began to spiral.

He said: “We don’t blame Loganair. They say the flight was a serious lossmaker so they cannot bear that any more than we can. However, we do appreciate the effect on readers. As far as a solution is concerned, we have an open mind. If there was a transportation solution which was financially viable, the industry would look at it.
“Seaplanes operate to Oban. You never know.”