A ferry crisis response from island-serving airline Loganair has spectacularly back-fired, after an air fare promotion appeared on social media this week.

Headlined as the airline ‘doing our bit’, the sponsored announcement suggested low fares to Glasgow and Edinburgh from Stornoway as a response to the breakdown of the MV Loch Seaforth.

Loganair said: “Due to the current disruption to ferry services to Ullapool, Loganair is stepping in to offer more low fares for travel this week.”

But instead of grateful customers and extra bookings, they instead faced a barrage of criticism from people who pointed out that the fares aren’t low, the timing is poor – and that key services to Inverness are still missing.

A torrent of online commentary described the promotion as ‘almost funny’, ‘capitalising’ on people’s desperation and ‘more like cashing in than stepping in.’

One said: “Well that takes the biscuit. How about doing something for the poor people that want to or can’t fly to Inverness because Loganair have the only franchise available and these flights are currently suspended/unavailable?”

Missing flights to Inverness were only one of the themes of the negative comments. Others pointed out that they had booked, or were searching for, the ‘low fare’ flights, only to find that they were being asked to pay over £400.

Loganair customer service staff tried to respond to each comment, but their reasonable replies were swept away on a tide of outrage.

The failure of the promotion was noted, with one commenter calling the promotion ‘just another example of Loganair’s lack of empathy for the people of these islands.’

Another simply remarked: “Loganair, well this post went well for you.”