Well they can go to Inverness or Aberdeen and transfer. Subsidies are not required to help big business!

Happy to be proved wrong, but I don't think this was the case. Many of the passengers were heading offshore but were heading Wick to Aberdeen to start their rotation.

Personally I have no issues with subsidies being used on this route as I doubt much will go to line the pockets of big business, but rather help sustain one of the more remote parts of GB.

That sounds like you’ve never done the long drive north ! Aberdeen is probably a five to six hour drive at best along a succession of some of the worst A roads in the country. Inverness is a near three hour drive along half of those roads. Give it a try when lockdown rules allow and see if you feel the same way.

Well said Saabdriver1 ! Will be interesting to see who they can get to run these flights and interesting to see if the timings are more suitable for day return business work

Presumably AirTask, Eastern and Loganair are the likely PSO bidders...
Any other possible (non-random) candidates ?

Is this the first time that Wick airport will have used PSO to secure flights. Or has PSO been used before at this airport.

Don’t forget the alternatives: a four hour 20/20 minute train journey or an expensive Stagecoach service!

fjencl

I think so. It has always been disadvantaged due to it being on the “mainland” so not seen as being as worthy of a subsidy like the islands (or Campbeltown).

A local joke was “How do you increase tourism to Caithness? Sink the Ola”. (that was St. Ola, the ferry to Orkney!).

When I lived there Gill Air operated three times a day to Aberdeen, Mondays to Fridays.
Loganair flew to Lerwick, Kirkwall, Inverness, Glasgow and Edinburgh. None of it was subsidised.

LTNman

Correct me if i'm wrong, but weren't there flights in the past? Presumably these carried passengers, and so there was some demand. Perhaps not enough to make it profitable, but that's where the subsidies come in - making routes that were marginal before feasible.

The quoted PSO is £1m per year, or £2,700 per day. Assuming twice daily to EDI and GLA, then that works out at £342 per flight. That's not an insignificant sum, and will go a long way towards paying the operating costs of the flight. Another way of looking at it - at an average ticket price of £40 each way, then it's the equivalent of 8 extra passengers - more if you run a reduced service at weekends.

The truth is next to no one lives up there with a tiny population and an ever smaller one that would be prepared to fly. There gets to a point that the further south people live from Wick the more appealing Inverness becomes.

The population is around 24,000. Dounreay and Rolls Royce employ around 1300 people and used the flights heavily.
The journey to Inverness is over four hours by train and three by coach.
The population of Mull of Kintyre is less than 10,000 yet Campbeltown gets a PSO flight, when it is just over 3 hours by road to Scotland's largest city.

Is there a planned date for publishing some sort of RFP around the proposed PSO or (even better) a date when flights are expected to start ?
Looking at the recent press, it seems like there's a lot of grandstanding by politicians.... but very little in the way of publicly visible action

The pace is glacial.

From the John O' Groat JournalHighland Council has agreed to help fund the creation of a public service obligation for Wick John O'Groats Airport.

Councillor Nicola Sinclair, chair of the Caithness committee, welcomed the decision to earmark £300,000 towards the creation of the PSO.

It came as the local authority agreed its budget for the next financial year.

The money will add to the funding already secured from the Scottish and UK governments.

Councillor Nicola Sinclair said: “I am delighted to see Highland Council agree to fund the public service obligation for Wick John O’Groats Airport.

"We now have multiple funding partners in the form of the Highland Council, Scottish Government and UK government, and work continues in earnest to reinstate services from our airport and mitigate the economic damage caused by the grounding of flights.

Another month has passed with little in the way of observable outcome
Allowing for a minimum of 2 months from formally advertising an RFP to a bid submission deadline, plus maybe another month from bidding closing to allow for appraising bids, notifying a winner and allowing the winner to sign contracts and put aircraft and crew in place means we are talking mid July as the earliest possible flight start date

With summer 2021 likely to see a domestic tourism boom, there is a great opportunity to get the route off to a strong start with plenty of pax and support the economy of a rather remote region that could do with a bit of a boost. So why the PSO delay ? Is there a need for more cash somewhere ?

There may well be Scottish Government funding required. Since we're in the Scottish Parliament election campaign it's possible that there's some kind of purdah preventing things like this being announced during the campaign.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/sc...odies/pages/2/

"Decisions on matters of policy on which the next administration might wish to take a different view from the current administration are expected to be postponed until after the election, provided that such postponement would not be detrimental to Scotland's interest or wasteful of public resources."

" (even better) a date when flights are expected to start ?"

I really think there are a hundred more pressing issues right now than deciding on providing a service at public cost that will benefit remarkably few people.

I don't think they have all the funding in place yet. I think they hope to have the final amount of funding in place soon, however long that will be !

Does anyone have any stats on previous passenger movements from Wick?

From CAA staTs

2018 - ABZ 7,775, EDI 9,341
2019 - ABZ 5,317, EDI 7,395

thanks - a hundred or so people a week to and from both - seems a pretty small number to me

Airlines asked to tender for lifeline Wick flights - BBC News

What airlines are credible for this ? Just AirTask, Eastern and Loganair ? Anybody else ?

The tender period for bids to fly at Wick closed last week on Thurs 02 Dec. Anyone know if there was at least 1 suitable bid, and when an announcement of the winner is likely to be ?

https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=OCT429822

Well, the deadline for the submission of tenders was extended twice with somewhat strange explanations, if that is an indication...

…would suggest noone is interested.
Perhaps seasonal only would work when tourists can boost the otherwise low business/local numbers, which were in decline. Was a dire grim place last time I was there. Even the JOG tourist landmark area was run down and areas boarded up and closed. That was way before covid. Can’t see much investment going there.

Suggest VV is right when I saw the previous post referencing Storm Arwen. Looks like Wick's future is as a fuel stop for light aircraft en route to & from the N. Atlantic. If only someone could have incorporated WIC into the NC500 circuit & yes - developed JoG!

Does anyone know what the aircraft and frequency requirement(s) are for the contract as it doesn't state these even on the Full Notice Text?

Is this information confidential and only accessible to potential bidders?

Highly unlikely Wick will be left as just a fuel stop, albeit the main reason will be political. However there is a market with the general public if the times and prices are right. A daily service to both Edinburgh and Aberdeen hopefully will transpire, perhaps twice a day. Loganair, Eastern, Flybe, Emerald Airlines and Wideroe possible candidates I’d think. Best of luck to them.

cant see Wideroe, FlyBe2 or Emerald going anywhere near it

If they can’t get tenders for a PSO route then they have no chance. Wideroe and Emerald are very wishful thinking. Out of those maybe you’d get Loganair with a twin otter or Eastern with a J41. I can’t see anything else realistically.

I'm old enough to remember the days of BA on a leased Gulfstream 1 or a Gill SD330 on ABZ/WIC/ABZ... changed days indeed. Can't recall if Air Ecosse ever flew it. Struggle to get a C152 now on it!!

Neither Wideroe nor Emerald (at this stage) have a UK Operating Licence and AOC, so neither has the traffic rights to fly domestically within the UK. They'd be ruled out of bidding for the PSO on that basis alone.

Flybe with a Q400 has to be fanciful at best.

Unless Airtask have come up with something - and it's difficult to see what - then it looks like a straight Eastern J41 v Loganair 340 contest is the most likely.

I'm old enough to remember flying from Wick to Kirkwall on a DC3!

Seriously though any essential users are going to want a early flight to either Aberdeen or Edinburgh and a late flight back. That means either a based aircraft (no chance,) or putting a Wick call into a flight from/to Kirkwall.

AirTask have an aircraft (admittedly rather small) based in Oban, which is hardly a great metropolis.
What would be needed to make Wick a single aircraft base for these routes ?
Significantly more PSO cash ? Stronger engineering support ? Better navaids ? Anything else ?

I realise Wick is not exactly EDI... but my question is asked in genuine curiosity

The Airtask plane is, I believe, based at Cumbernauld and flies up and back every day. The Council (not government ) subsidy is huge - £220 per ticket.

Having worked for Loganair when they ran this route from Edinburgh, the loads were very woeful then at times hence why it went, I'd have a feeling not even with the funding they would be that interested.

That kind of PSO would be best suited to an outfit like AIS Airlines that has operated various PSOs across Europe with Jetstream 31s. They are pretty much a flight school with an attached airline that serves as a launching pad for their students. i(I guess should it ever come to crewing a Wick base, they would need to resort to drawing straws)..

PS I might be a little biased as far as WIC is concerned. My elaborated plan to log WIC as one of the few remaining UK airports I have not travelled from ended up in a Loganair minivan driving me down to INV at breakneck speed (and that was the day after Loganair had to cancel various intra-Orkney flights I was booked on). 'Nuff said...

AIS Airlines would also not be permitted to bid for it because it's a UK route and EU-based airlines are no longer allowed to operate domestically within the UK due to Brexit; I do agree though that a Dornier Do-228, BAe Jetstream 31 or DHC-6 Twin Otter would likely be the most suitable aircraft.

None of which are particularly efficient and how old are the newest J31s?
Double drops might be feasible or triangle routes. Something might be better than nothing, but don’t see this coming to much or with any longevity

Not altogether obvious why Kirkwall passengers would want a stop at Wick on the way to Aberdeen when there are already enough of them to keep the flight busy.