Very interesting replies as always.
If they are struggling to attract operators onto the sun routes to cater for the local population, should they maybe change emphasis?
Certainly under Andy Flower's tenure as MD, ABZ were one of the participants in promoting the region for
inbound tourism, especially the businessman who would also take in some leisure activities in their 'down' time (& I'm not talking about down by the harbour!!!
).
Whatever you may think of Aberdeen City (& I work in the centre, so know only too well its shortcomings!) it does also have some nice parks & gardens. But especially, I'm thinking of Aberdeenshire, which has everything from beaches to cliffs to Royal Deeside to mountains to golf to castles to whisky trails to gardens etc.
Why couldn't ABZ attract some inbound flights to bring in the tourists. I often think they are missing a trick here. OK, the weather isn't always nice (certainly not this year!) but nowhere has wall to wall sunshine & let's face it - you don't come to Scotland for sun & warmth! It's a bonus if you get it! You really come for the scenery principally.
Maybe many of them are arriving on private bizjets (especially many of Trump's chums presumably). So let's attract these flights also. There does seem to have been a spike in these flights, although there usually is in summer.
Freight. I have always thought the airport could have been able to attract more freight flights, given the increasing global nature of the oil industry, & local companies in the Aberdeen area participating in global projects. But the airport have never really developed the cargo area, & not sure they ever will. They seem to leave it to the harbour to ship out freight & again, I wonder if an opportunity has not been grasped here.
And, as has been said, nobody knows what bmiR have in store - it all seems very secretive there. the main biz hubs seem to be covered - LHR, AMS, FRA, CDG. So I wonder what niche routes they could fly to.