Nine airports in the Highlands and Islands are closed to scheduled flights today due to industrial action over pay by trade union Unite.

Unite’s membership at HIAL is principally made up of fire fighters and leading fire fighters within the Airport Fire Service and engineers.

The airports which are closed due to the unavailability of rescue and fire fighting staff employed by Highlands and Islands Airports Limited are: Barra, Benbecula, Campbeltown, Islay, Kirkwall, Stornoway, Sumburgh, Tiree and Wick.

Staff at Inverness Airport have not taken the action and the airport is operating as normal, although flights to other HIAL airports from the Highland capital have been cancelled.

Dundee Airport, operated by HIAL via a subsidiary company, is not involved in the action and is also operating as normal.

A HIAL spokesman said: “We are deeply disappointed that the strike action is taking place at nine of our airports today. Every effort has been made to avoid it. We are grateful for the support of those employees who have opted to work as normal today.

“A second day of action is planned for Friday 4^th July. We will have to formally notify the airlines of anticipated airport closures later this week to give them time to contact passengers and cancel flights.”