That's good news Capt D, I think 2w is probably about right in my view for RIX. Any idea of the a/c type for S18?

Down as B733/B735 again

Industry body Oil & Gas UK has also rubbished the reports about the imminent demise of the UK industry;

Source; https://oilandgasuk.co.uk/statement-...and-gas-study/

It'll be interesting to see whether the mainstream media will give this statement as much prominence as the report claiming that oil would run out in ten years got. I won't hold my breath.

FlyBE/Eastern
 

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/...-city-airport/

BE flight codes to be added to T3 flights - not sure if that was already known or new info.

Mmmmmm Eastern Airways website gone from end of October. Aircraft Painted in Flybe Colours could this be the end of Eastern Airways as they disappear into Flybe ?

Very unlikely I'd have thought, after all it didn't have this effect for either Loganair or Blue Islands so I wouldn't have thought there would be any different outcome for Eastern. I imagine the last thing BE want would be a myriad of E70/E145/E135/Saabs and Jetstreams to worry about.

Turnover turbulence
 

ABZ revenue down 13.8%, reflecting the downturn in the oil industry:

Kevin Scott: Contrasting fortunes for Scotland?s airports (From HeraldScotland)

Loganair 'claim first blood'
 

Loganair claims first blood in airline battle | Shetland News

LOGANAIR chief Jonathan Hinkles said his airline is performing better than Flybe on routes to and from Shetland - but he warned having two operators at Sumburgh Airport "isn't sustainable" at current passenger levels.

The battle between the rival airlines swapped the skies for Lerwick Town Hall on Thursday afternoon as representatives for both operators gave updates at the latest meeting of the Shetland external transport forum.

Hinkles revealed passenger figures for the two operators since they quit their franchise partnership and went head to head from 1 September, with his airline seemingly winning so far.

But figures showed that all of the planes were on average flying less than half full as thousands of seats went empty.

Hinkles said Loganair had nearly double the number of passengers than Flybe travelling to and from Sumburgh on their competing routes in the first three weeks of September, despite it having less seats available on its smaller Saab planes.

Flybe interim chief commercial officer Ronnie Matheson said the figures were in line with the airline's initial predictions as it builds on encouraging more people to travel to Shetland with lower fares, with future expansion possible.

Flybe - in conjunction with Eastern Airways - competes with Loganair on routes to Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow using a bigger, faster Embraer 170 jet on nine flights a day.

Hinkles told the forum that 6,176 people had used Loganair between 1 and 20 September, while 3,199 travelled with Flybe.

He added that Loganair had 12,690 seats on their routes and Flybe 13,684, meaning the former had an overall load of 49 per cent and the latter 23 per cent.

Hinkles' statistics also showed that Loganair had a market share of two thirds and Flybe had 34 per cent.

Loganair's performance this summer compared to last year was up on 2016, he said, while planned developments include adding defibrillators to aircraft and adding more overhead baggage space.

Hinkles also attacked Flybe's schedule over the upcoming festive period, with Loganair set to operate on every day Sumburgh Airport is open while Flybe is set to cut back on its Edinburgh and Aberdeen routes, for example.

He added that Loganair had evaluated using the Embraer 170 - taking over five years of weather data from Sumburgh - and concluded that it is three times more likely to "suffer serious delay or cancellation due to weather than the Saab 2000 on the same flight".

Hinkles concluded that "the market is not growing to sustain the extra services" but said "we are here to stay - and we will be here to stay".

To me, underlines the unsustainability of competition in the current climate, and of using jets on the LSI run.

23%. I can beat that!

Flew to LSI earlier on this month with a total of 6 pax on the E70.

Even worse than that, the LSI-GLA rotation after that had.... zero pax

Just had a look, and BE have cut their base fares again. £35 o/w, a far cry from a month ago!

So we're looking at a market of 10,000 pax in 20 days............... even if one airline gives up that's still only 70 - 78% which is probably just about break even

With 2 on the route they could both end up hurting badly

I don't know how anyone could add such a large aircraft to a lightly populated airport like Sumburgh, especially with another company already established with smaller unfilled aircraft.
Did they think that the oil companies would use it? There are good reasons why the oil companies use charter flights. They can regulate the forwarding of people to Shetland if weather conditions, or other delays, are causing them logistical problems. They can also get their home-bound crews out of Shetland whenever their chopper lands from offshore.
I'm going back a few years but I doubt if things have changed much. Many of the charters would not leave Aberdeen if the helicopters were not cleared to fly out to the platforms. There was only limited accommodation available so sending crews up there on spec could mean a lot of expensive flying up and down.

Upward trend continues...
 

... despite a continuing fall in helicopter passenger numbers - perhaps this is underlined following the recent stories re Bristow making engineering/pilot redundancies, and now reported today Babcock posting a loss.

Aberdeen International Airport traffic continues to rise - BBC News

Domestics +7.2%
International +3.3%
Helicopters -8.2%

Perhaps to bear in mind Sept 2017 would also have been inflated by Offshore Europe so perhaps the lukewarm growth also reflects the downturn with not as many delegates attending the conference this time.

Still, fixed-wing passenger increases are welcomed.

KLM Fk70
 

Last commercial sorties tomorrow I understand for the remaining KLM Fokker 70 fleet before they are retired. We are down to get PH-KZS.

Bit of an end of an era - ABZ has seen F27, 28, 50, 70, 100 through the years, with the likes of Air UK, KLM, NLM, SAS, Busybee etc.

I've always had the Fokkers visual.... :E

4 x KLM flights arrived in NWI this morning in trail. Assume it was F70s heading there for storage.

LOG/bmi codeshare
 

Loganair agrees code share with sister airline | The Shetland Times Ltd

Probably not the most surprising news in the world.

News? NEWS?

Clearly not much happening in Shetland thsi week....................

Looks like TUI have had second thoughts about their planned BOJ service.

Dropped, replaced with an additional PMI rotation meaning it will be 4x weekly next year. I did wonder if BOJ could sustain two operators - Balkan remain twice weekly as with previous years.

On a PMI related note it doesn’t look like TCX will return next year after their 6 week token run this year operated by Evelop (which strangely ended just as peak season started!)

I always found TCX rather strange. Never seemed to see them at ABZ except for the Oct school holidays at the end of the summer season when all of a sudden we would have a plethora of them. Then they'd disappear again.

TUI to base a B737-800 for next summer.

presumably this replaces ASL and will be part based with GLA?