8 April 2013 Last updated at 12:27
Deliveries of daily newspapers had been made by airEarly morning deliveries of daily newspapers to the Western Isles have been scrapped.
For the past three years the papers were flown from Aberdeen to Stornoway and Benbecula using a Loganair charter flight.
The Scottish Newspaper Society said this method was no longer cost effective.
Papers are now being taken by road to Ullapool where they are put on a ferry that reaches Stornoway at about midday.
Scottish Newspaper Society director Jim Raeburn said the change would help to avoid increasing costs for readers and losses for publishers.
He said: “It is a question of striking a balance in all of this.”
He said the balance was between maintaining the cover price for people in the Western Isles at the same price as those in the central belt and the cost to the publisher and the potential losses.
Mr Raeburn said the real cost of producing a newspaper against its cover price had risen to about £6.
He added: “It is completely unsustainable and this is why after careful examination we have had to come up with this new arrangement.”
Western Isles SNP MP, Angus MacNeil, has written to UK business secretary Vince Cable to seek low-cost deliveries using Royal Mail flights.
Mr MacNeil said: “It is of course disappointing that daily newspapers will not be arriving in most of the islands until lunchtime, these changes affect islands from Eriskay to Lewis, with Barra unaffected due to a different distribution route.
“I have written to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable MP, to see if there is a possibility of cutting Royal Mail costs by combining the mail flight with the papers which could cut the cost of both services and overall run matters more efficiently for the islands.”
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Newspaper flights to isles scrapped