Yes, the based TUI metal 738 has been known about for a while (current LTN based machine coming up North)

What is new (and being far away, subject to change) is that the initial W18 plans suggest the ABZ summer base continuing for the winter.

Below is an example from the TUI website:

TOM 1346
Aberdeen (ABZ)
Tenerife South (TFS)
WED 05 DEC
08:45
13:35
Direct: 4 hrs 50 min

TOM 1347
Tenerife South (TFS)
Aberdeen (ABZ)
WED 12 DEC
14:50
19:35
Direct: 4 hrs 45 min

The timings suggest a possible ABZ based aircraft but currently only the usual 2x weekly TFS rotations are bookable. Will be something to keep an eye on. Difficult to imagine there being enough pickings to go around in the winter months to keep a based unit busy enough though.

Can't see it reported now but Oct 2017 fixed wing passengers up 4.4% vs. Oct 2016.

A ~3% drop in heli passengers over the same timeframe.

ABZ TUI Winter Base
 

The ABZ base possibility is also a query for NWI as the times being shown for winter 18/19 also seem to suggest a start/finish in NWI. Could it be that the same a/c positions between different regional airports for the winter or would that be too commercially unviable?

The EDI-based 738 has no rotation on Wednesdays in winter. Maybe it operates this TFS flight?

TUI now advertising for ABZ based cabin crew for next summer:

TUI Cabin Crew - Aberdeen | TUI Group

Wizz
 

I note from the Glasgow thread they are losing their GDN service with Wizz scaling back big time on their UK regions ops.

Looks like ABZ-GDN is staying and will be twice weekly as already known but ABZ-WAW is dropped from 19th January.

My anecdotal evidence is I flew back on the A321 GDN-ABZ a couple of weeks ago and it was rammed with 214/230 seats filled. WAW outbound less busy with 151/180 taken.

Thanks Brexit :mad:

Great shame about Warsaw, especially as it seems from that figure the loads were decent - 151 isn't shabby, of course don't know about yield.

Still - Better Together over the cliff.

Confirmed that BE/T3 dropping their LSI routes from ABZ, GLA, EDI due to “poor passenger numbers” effective 8th January.

The ABZ-KOI service will continue.

It looks like Eastern/Flybe blinked first. Well it’s the most expensive time of the year Jan/Feb with WX delays and low pax numbers, so makes sense if you’re going to bail out. I wander how much cash was wasted with pissing contest!

There’s a bigger shock coming just around the corner as well...

Which
Is ?

Hopefully it's the cessation of the Flybe/Eastern tie-up.

Assuming the 'shock' isn't the end of Flybe as I've seen rumoured (without foundation so far), it seems they intend to develop services at KOI, including the possibility of basing aircraft there for earlier morning departures. They say 'watch' this space but there may be more than one space we will have to watch.

Passenger growth goes on
 

Aberdeen International Airport traffic continues to rise - BBC News

Nice increases in both domestic & international fixed-wing.

Helicopters continue to be depressed - I suspect permanently.

Until the price of oil hikes up again, then more rigs will re-open, requiring helicopter transfers. Continue to be depressed - yes. permanently - no

There was more good news from Hurricane Energy yesterday although you probably won't have heard if you get your news from the mainstream media. The BBC, for example, chose to ignore or hide the story and instead ran one about the Forties pipeline being shut down for repairs for three weeks.

Here's what Proactive Investors had to say about Hurricane's news;

Source; Hurricane Energy Plc shares advance as oil inventory rises to 2.6bn barrels

If you read the various CPRs on the Hurricane Energy website, the aggregate estimates of oil in place for their various licenses west of Shetland range from 8.9bn to 26.3bn barrels. The CPR also notes that if the Lincoln and Warwick fields turn out to be a single large accumulation, which looks to be quite likely, these estimates would rise further.

It remains to be seen how much of this oil can be economically extracted but, to put these figures into some kind of context, total recoverable reserves from the whole of Scotland were estimated by the OBR and some of the mainstream media to be 10bn and 3bn barrels respectively just before the independence referendum.

With modern drilling and extraction techniques, it's not unusual for large fields to yield up to 80% of their oil initially in place in the fullness of time so Hurricane Energy is definitely worth keeping a close eye on.

These discoveries won't make a significant difference for Aberdeen in the short term. There will be some traffic when the Early Production System starts to be installed next year but full scale production is unlikely before the mid 2020s. That said, these finds look likely to warrant a lot more drilling in order to better understand the reservoirs. Such drilling could happen relatively soon, especially if Hurricane manages to sell its Tempest and Typhoon licenses to generate some early cash. There are lots of drilling rigs available at attractive rates at present, even though the market is starting to pick up.

On a Carousel....
 

Angry passengers forced to abandon luggage at Aberdeen Airport after lack of staff leaves cases stuck on plane - Daily Record

Sounds all rather farcical although not sure Swissport can do much about mother nature.

How did poor weather affect this? Flight delayed by the weather and nobody on shift to unload or another reason?

We've had some snow up here which was still lying Fri, but ice was the main hazard - police were telling people not to travel unless absolutely necessary.

But how someone was able to clamber onto the carousel is beyond me.

I know BA are densifying their fleet but 200 pax on an A319 is impressive.

Swissport have won the Flybe handling contract at ABZ and I’m starting to wonder if they are biting off more than they can chew currently? I had a 30 minute wait for steps and a GPU last Friday evening after arriving from LSI. There was also a similar wait prior to leaving ABZ.