Scotland’s new flight path – some hope for Scottish seafood producers?

A newly announced Virgin Atlantic direct flight between Edinburgh and Orlando, Florida, due to commence in April 2022, has been earmarked as offering Scottish seafood producers a significant route into the US southeast market. It is thought that the flight path will enable Scottish seafood (Scotland’s top export) to land on customer’s plates in Orlando roughly 18 hours after being caught in Scotland.

With Scottish salmon exports to the rest of the world for the first half of 2021 totalling an estimated £119.6m, exporting fresh Scottish salmon globally via air freight (within the holds of passenger planes) is by no means a novel concept.  However, the new flight path to the US (which is estimated to be Scotland’s second most important market for salmon, only behind France), will be widely welcome news to Scottish fishing businesses still navigating the so far rough Brexit waters.

The news also comes on the back of the Scottish Government announcement this week that fishing businesses and marine organisations have been awarded financial support of up to £800,000 as a means to mitigate the impacts of Brexit and help the sector recover from effects of COVID-19.