'Sumburgh has more to offer and has just had the runway extended - costing millions.' - and what a complete waste of money that was. £10 million for what?
I disagree. How can making a fairly short runway longer, allowing higher payloads and pax numbers be a waste of money?
Shortly after deciding to do this they downgrade the scheduled planes from ATP's to Saab 340's.
'They' are Loganair/BA, no HIAL. The runway was extended with the view to attracting future larger aircraft, and increased payloads on the existing users. That Loganair decided to replace a 68 seat aircraft with a 34 seat one is their business decision, not the airport's.
They now lost one of the weekly 146 Faroe flights after the airline clearly realised that there isn't the customer base they expected.
If you did a quick bit of research you would discover that the loads on the Atlantic Airways flights this summer were extremely good. The customer base certainly is there, with the announcement that their schedule next year is changing, by missing out the direct FAE-LSI sector, but the Stansted route will remain. I believe there are several reasons for this, one being the delays from the above average number of foggy days last summer - both in Faeroe and Sumburgh.
An extended runway anywhere has got to be a good thing, especially to a lifeline community like Shetland.
I do agree that it is a huge advantage having two fully equipped airfields on the Island, it will be interesting to see what happens in the near future.