Thinking out of the box a bit, I wonder whether Aberdeen might be a potential route for Eastern Airways with a J41? I'm not sure how viable it might be so maybe someone with a better local knowledge might like to comment?
I don't think there's an awful lot of demand for flights to Aberdeen. It might have got one passenger about 4 years ago when I was working up there, but nowadays I can't see there being much demand.
Given the runway length and lack of demand, the only possibilities are going to be airlines operating turboprops - FlyBE, Eastern and CityWing. But with such great connections to the rail network, there's just no demand for domestic flights, and I don't think the current terminal has customs/immigration facilities, so international is a non-starter.
CityWing may be a possibility - flying into Carlisle would open up easy connections to the rail network, but then there already direct flights from IOM to most of the population centres of the UK, so there's not going to be much demand here either.
Beyond a Stobart bankrolled route to London/Dublin, I just can't see anything else that might work.
Are they building a new terminal or just using the current one?
The original plans called for a new terminal and re-aligned runway, the latter of which had to be delivered before work on the freight depot could begin. But thanks to the local farmer complaining that all we would get would be a freight depot, now all we will be getting is a freight depot. Kind of ironic really!