Form the Shetland News website
Gavin Morgan
25 November, 2006
A SHETLAND councillor has vowed to fight any proposals to move Bristow Helicopters oil rig operations away from Scatsta airport, after it was revealed a review of the service was imminent.
The pending arrival of five new, technologically advanced helicopters on the island has raised questions regarding the long term future of Scatsta, which is located next to Sullom Voe oil terminal.
Bristows and the main oil companies will be having a meeting on Wednesday to begin an operational review of their air service within Shetland.
The reviews are standard practice but this one is raising particular concern because the publicly funded Sumburgh airport, operated by Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd (HIAL), has recently expressed interest in gaining the Bristows contract.
The review will cover the Shetland operation from every angle, including the viability of the privately owned Scatsta continuing its current service flying oil workers out to rigs in the North Sea and North Atlantic, or the possibility of the contract going to Sumburgh or Aberdeen.
The decision will be made in light of the arrival of five Sikorsky S-92 helicopters over the next 12 to 18 months. The S-92 can carry 19 passengers, one more than the Super Pumas currently in use.
The S-92 was also the preferred choice of the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) for the new coastguard rescue service, a contract Bristows has lost to the Canadian CHC Helicopter Corporation.
Delting councillor Drew Ratter said any move to shift oil operations out of the north mainland would be a bad thing for the islands.
"Overall Shetland will be a big loser if Scatsta goes and I would be in strong opposition to any plans of this sort," he said.
"That HIAL are trying to bring something like this about raises all sorts of issues. A publicly funded organisation cannot go into business competition with a private one. I see this behaviour as mystifying."
Bristows lead the Integrated Aviation Consortium who will make the final decision about Scatsta's future after the review has been fully processed. Oil companies that are involved will include BP, Shell, CNR and Petrofac.
Sumburgh airport manager Nigel Flaws said: "We have not had any direct approach from either helicopter operators or oil companies. It appears that what they are doing is a full review of their whole northern North Sea logistics and hopefully we will benefit from it.
"The infrastructure is all here. It would be a very smooth transition to bring it here. We are now well placed with our extended runway."
If Scatsta were to lose its offshore links it would inevitably have to close down. This would lead not only to job losses, but to Shetland being left with just one airport at a time when efforts are being made to expand tourism on a large scale.
Mr Ratter said: "The increasing number of visitors that are coming to Shetland means it is more and more important to have two fully capable airports. We need a diversion airport on Shetland. If there was only one, and any type of problem occurred the planes would have to return to mainland Scotland."
It was possible one airport would not have the capacity to handle the very busy summer seasons and if the planes had to be diverted to the mainland visitors may decide to cut their holidays short or be discouraged from travelling to the isles again, he said.
The review should be completed in December but a decision on whether operations will be moved away from Scatsta is not expected for a few months.
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