Originally Posted by
lbhsbz
why not use a boat?
In Orkney and Shetland - where this is I think being initially contemplated, the coastlines and waters can be quite treacherous - and routings extremely slow.
I've done Kirkwall to Westray by boat, for example, a commercial service, weaving in and out of tiny little rocky islands - it takes about 90 minutes, and I'm guessing (I'm no sailor) that regularly there are surface conditions that make that very ill advised.
The total distance is about 20nm! So even in an Islander, under 10 minutes - and whilst clearly some conditions, such as heavy fog would be as problematic as for a ship, many other conditions would be fine for the aeroplane but not the boat.
The air ferry around those two groups of islands is most definitely essential to maintaining a decent quality of life for the people who live there.
G