It's all up to the around 2,200 Scillonians what they want - to stay in the past or to move forward. I don't know what was decided in the Coucil of the Isles of Scilly meeting on the 21 June (the minutes isn't published yet) with the regards of what to do with ISC - resurfacing or do nothing and hope they will pass the upcoming friction test in September. Clearly something has to be done with the airport if Isles of Scilly don't want to slip further in to the past.
The Isles of Scilly Steamship Company Ltd will become the sole provider of all transport between the mainland and the Scilly Isles with BIH is closing down their helicopter flights. Fair enough around 500 of the 1,000 share holders are living on the Scilly Isles, but the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company Ltd is a commercial company and they will not necessarily act in the best interest of the all Scillonians. I suspect this will be a case for Competion Commision, and they may end up with a decision to end the monopoly by breaking up company in two - one for air travel and one for maritime transport. This will give a more healthy competition hauling people to and fro the islands. An other alternative will be to make the ISC-mainland a PSO route with carriers having to bid for tenders lasting three of four years. Here is an example of an "Invitation to Tender" that the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications have out now (still 10 days left to the bid end):
http://www.regjeringen.no/Upload/SD/...osjune2012.pdf
But a tender doesn't solve the main problem - an airport that can only handle old and small aircraft types with rather high crew share (1 to 8 for the Islander and 2 to 19 for the Twin Otter). The average age of Skybus Twin Otters are 32 years and the Islanders are 22 years (the 2 Romanian build BN2Bs are the youngest), but the design of both aircraft types started almost 50 years ago. The Dash-8 design is 20 years younger. Also the twice as high cruise speed of the Dash-8 compared with both the Islander and the Twin Otter is a plus, not that important if an updated St Just is used, but if the mainland activity is moved to Newquay the difference will be significant.