Well, it's been an exciting week on St Helena with the successful operation of the Comair implementation flight on Monday. (There's a good video available on the St Helena Government facebook site).
In the video, you will see that the aircraft turns onto the apron initially following the guideline for stand A1, then turns left to park in the middle of the apron between stands A1 and A2. (See the parking diagram in doc FHSH 2-12: available on the ATNS website under "Products and Services", "ATM" and "Projects".) Thus the passenger door was on the runway side of the apron, rather than the terminal side.
I wonder if this is how they intend to operate normally when there is only a single aircraft expected? Eventually there will be times when there will be two aircraft on the apron at the same time. I'd have thought that ground staff would be better served by parking a single aircraft on stand A1 or A2 so that they have experience of getting the aircraft parked correctly. When two aircraft are on the ground together, accurate parking will be necessary in order for each aircraft to safely power out of the parking position on departure.
I do have some sympathy for the marshallers at the airport. I am assuming they will be locally employed St Helenians (at least eventually, if not at first). Their chances of becoming and remaining competent at marshalling are probably limited by the fact that they will handle only one or two flights a week.
If they, or a pilot, gets it wrong, the aircraft could be stopped in a position where it is impossible to power out for departure. As I believe there are no tugs on the airport, how would such a situation be handled? Lots of men pulling on ropes?
Incidentally, that video has some shots of people talking with a decidedly brisk wind blowing - nicely illustrating one of the problems with this elevated location! And the windsock shows it's a strongish crosswind component.
I have no idea about St Helena, but I do have a fair bit of experience with Vagar Airport in the Faroe Islands - arguable comparable to St Helena.
With Atlantic Airways 3 x based A319s, they're very rarely ever parked on the published stands and are marshalled into a position that the airport authorities see fit. They're usually parked nose-in to the wind, as things can get a little blustery there to say the last
Though obviously on an A319, it doesn't matter whether the air steps are positioned on L1 or R2 door. Not possible on the 738.