Isle of Scilly Shuttle - New Operator
 

Just wondering if anyone knows who the new operator is thats going to be doing the Isle of Sicily shuttle operation with 139s.

Thanks for your assistance.

Someone who can afford to lose lots of money!

Spelling?
 

Sicily? Do you mean Isles of Scilly?

Sorry yes thats what I meant - Didn't check auto correct first.

Nothing happening at the moment as the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company have thrown a legal spanner in the works.

Seems like someone isn't happy with their monopoly being threatened....

Indeed https://twitter.com/PzHeliport/statu...42846649982976

Having been clobbered by a huge amount of money for unexpected work on their replacement freight vessel (the vessel - "Mali Rose" - is currently in dry dock in PZ having it's bow repaired after a parking prang) the last thing that the steamship company wants is competition eating into their profits.
Many of us here welcome the appearance of the helicopter again. Anything's better than rocking and rolling across on the good ship Scillonian III.

Nice idea but is there really enough profit (if any) in this proposal using a 139?

The 61 was bought and paid for and had the capacity to carry 19 pax and decent amount of bags but the 139 is expensive to buy/lease and just as costly to operate. You can squeeze 12 with light luggage into one of these so significantly less.

well the plan is for 8-10 million facility plus 2 139s in 15 seat config.

If they have memories of the 61 and think this will be comparable it will certainly be interesting.

Wow, 15 pax in a 139 plus holiday luggage, that’ll be cosy.

its cosy in 12 as well no idea how you will get the holiday luggage in .

The Steamship Company's aviation activities are more than a little hampered by the weather of the area. Runway threshold of 398ft means that all too often it's in cloud; Newquay is not a lot better though being further east helps somewhat.

The major advantage that any helicopter operator based at sea level in Penzance has is that they will be affected less often by the "usual" Cornish met. Insisting that the new operator uses St Just, at which the Steamship Company sets the landing fees is a very bad joke and entirely unacceptable as well.

What about using an older S92 - must be a few cheap ones out there that they could use. If they used a 61 before would a 92 work - or too expensive.

Plenty of relatively new low-mileage H225s kicking about too!

New Helicopter operator IOS
 

All 'New heliport' plans on hold due Cornwall Council 'suggesting' that the planning permission given is 'doubtful'.
I also think that the costs have escalated and there will be no 'user rights' transferable from the old site.
In essence the new location is just that NEW and would be subject to far more scrutiny for both planning and CAA licensing.
As to the actual equipment planned I suspect it would be difficult to really operate at a profit with its low payload, and diversion reserves.
The original PZ operation benefitted from its sea level location and was in the weather shadow of the west Cornwall peninsular; the very idea of operating the new service from Lands-End was quite correctly rejected due to the well know weather restrictions at St Just (who have spent a small fortune on GPS approach technology to try and deal with this).
On another tack I did hear that the dedicated S61 'EB' that served for years on the route (specially modified to allow quick turarounds) is now logging in Canada.

Lot of speculation here. The new PZ location clearly best situated and no planning or certification barriers. As to type, well AW139s now available on used /lease market and performance will allow an increased frequency and faster passage to meet passenger demand.

Having tried twice over the last summer to try to go from Newquay to St.Marys with the Twin Otters but had cancellations each time due to weather, I fear the frequency of weather issues cancelling flights on a fairly routine basis, plus the costs of running the helicopters will make it very tough indeed to make a living. A cancelled Twotter flight and Skybus automatically offer to drive you down to take the boat as an alternative and much of the time those passenger opt for that, so no need for ticket reimbursement. The heli-operator I'm assuming doesn't have a boat back-up option, so anyone on a day trip to say Tresco will just cancel and want their money back.

More problems.

https://www.piratefm.co.uk/news/late...-is-suspended/