Its interesting to note the advantage the S92 with RIPS has had this year. It has certainly had an advantage in the bad weather, though this is offset by the reduced payload it has to offer against the 225 on normal days, those normal days being the vast majority.
However it would be a mistake to think that RIPS is the panacea that allows flight in any conditions. Although RIPS has become more reliable of late (originally it barely ever worked) one still has to consider what one would do if it failed in flight. It may have elements of a dual system but there are plenty of single failure modes that take the whole system out. The flight manual just says to vacate icing conditions, which is only any good if you can do that. Therefore even the S92 with RIPS needs some positive air temperature band to descend into. If you fly IMC over mountains, or IMC in icing conditions over the N Sea when the freezing level is on the surface, you run the risk of falling into the sea if the RIPS fails and the icing is bad. Fortunately we in BHL don't do that, not sure about the other operators?
Rather than choosing the S92 over the 225, oil companies could ask for the rotor de-icing system as fitted to our Norwegian 225s. Its just a matter of the cost and lost payload vs the number of days you gain an advantage from it when flying out of Aberdeen, which in a typical year can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
HC