As per usual, some interesting comments on this thread.
Heavy/380 maintenance at Newquay? Plenty of runway and presumably parking area adjacent to the 404 hangar on the south side - and isn't the airfield becoming an Enterprise Zone ? How beneficial will that be ? Cornwall needs the work and presumably labour rates down here would be rather lower than in many established centres.
I spoke to someone a day or so ago who attended the meeting at St. Erth where the locals roundly rejected the BIH proposals for the heliport in their area - seems there was hell up which is a Cornish way of saying it didn't go too well....... I appreciate the Skybus people don't want the competition at Lands End but aren't most of the top brass Scillonians and wouldn't the failure of the helicopter service have a very serious impact on the economy of the Islands ?
I am going to Tresco shortly on the S-61 route, £179 return. How much might it conceivably cost if BIH need to operate out of NQY for any length of time ? It takes an age to get anything through planning in Cornwall and therefore it seems to me highly unlikely that BIH are going to be able to find an alternative site and getting planning approval and be up and running in any reasonable timescale.
If it currently costs over two pounds per mile on the S-61 route out of Penzance might it not need to increase by around £100 to cover the increased distance to be flown on each trip.