Penzance Heliport
Nuada
Thank you for a thoughtful reply
Fagins Goat
Just for the record, no, I'm not on the BI board, merely, as I made clear, an ex-employee.
In my entry, I was hoping to make clear some of the facts. I did not expect, in an aviation thread, to have to make them all. Of course sea-level operations are easier than those from an airfield at 400'. There are many points in favour of remaining at Penzance, not the least being road/rail access.
However, the company made a loss last year due to a drop in pax numbers, the enormous annual increase in the cost of spares for an ageing aircraft and the cost of operating an airfield (the heliport) solely from its own profits. It can do little about the first, nothing about the second but it can do something about the third.
Operations from Lands End will not be as easy as from Penzance. However, each flight will save some ten minutes round trip flight time. Five flights, roughly, can be made from Lands End for the flight time required of four flights from Penzance, a considerable saving. Lower fuel loads will raise pax loads by 1 or 2 pax, an increase of 4-8% in revenue.
Here's the question. Does the company remain at the heliport with its obvious advantages and go slowly (perhaps rapidly) broke or does it move to another airfield where it can share the airfield costs and where, it has clearly calculated, with the advantage of having all the facts, it can remain in profit.
Certainly Penzance Heliport is a (not quite) unique facility. However, lets be business-like. The company is faced with making a continuing loss partly through operating from there. It owns the heliport. It needs considerable funds to replace its ageing fleet. The likely replacements, the S92 or Westlands Heliliner are very expensive. While sale and closure may be a 'shame' - is that a business term - to close the heliport after 45 years, it probably offers the only way forward for the helicopter service to the Scillies.
I am trying hard to look at both sides of the argument