Oh dear, oh dear Scottish_ppl, unfortunately my local council did build a nice little airport - they spent over £10m on it and have lost £1-2m on it every year since they eventually managed to get it finished - unfortunately, all the thousands of commercial aircraft movements mentioned in the "business plan" never turned up - you might know the airport I'm talking about !
Perhaps you haven't seen the cuts required by the council this year - £40m - talk of 700 council jobs to go with a serious impact on the care of the elderly and schools - so, yes I do care about the subsidy of the ticket by the Scottish government and, in addition, the money lost on the airport by the council.
You might not be aware but the airport doesn't need to be licensed - if you want to know why you might like to read bit more of this thread.
Yes, you're right there are fragile communities around and many of them are not on islands.