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SIC Aeroplanes


Njugle
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I heard on Radio Shetland tonight that the SIC Transport gurus in their wisdom have decided that it would be 'cost effective' to buy another islander aircraft, yes, that would make two of them, so that should one be under repair or refit ther ewill always be another available. :? Which they alledge is a better idea that having one 'constantly available' on the UK mainland instead. :?

 

They also claim that there may be uses for the second one in between service usage.

 

As the Radio Shetland reporter valiantly observed it could be used for council trips away, being cheaper than using "Public Transport"

An SIC equivalent of "Air Force One" he continued :lol: , good on him. :)

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Well, a long time ago, when some of us were young, some brave soul on the then council mooted the idea that the council should run it's own airline. 'Sic(k)Air' a certain local newspaper columnist of the day christened it.... The idea was laughed outta town by the public in general, and thrown out by the full council of the day. Yet, barely 30 years later, we have just that, a council airline, sneaked in the back door with nary a whimper from either public of council members.....

 

Same thing happened with the street around the same time when the concrete slabs were laid it's full length. There was a small lobby in the council of the day gunning for new flags to be laid to replace the old, but again the idea was thrown out, as I seem to recall mainly on the grounds of cost. One generation seems tomake a very big difference, as once more we have the flags back, with their hassles, aggrivations and all.

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'Sic(k)Air' a certain local newspaper columnist of the day christened it.... The idea was laughed outta town by the public in general, and thrown out by the full council of the day. Yet, barely 30 years later, we have just that, a council airline, sneaked in the back door with nary a whimper from either public of council members..

 

I think that the convener of the SIC(k) has only one idea in his mind: "I want to be president of Shetland and I want my own plane - and now morgan wants his own plane too - and i want my own big white ferry and my own ministers and my I want to be very rich and very powerful and I want to sit at the same table as Dubblyabush and I want to be very very important. maybe i'll even declare war on edinburgh!"

 

Any concern for the wellbeing of Shetland is gone out the window, any worry about good management of our oil cash is gone. He wants independence - not for the good of shetland, thats what we idiots beleive - but because then he could be president and morgan could be prime minister! Thats why they like faroe so much; it has a prime minister and an embassy in london ... maybe shannon could be embassador in london? and riise could be the john prescott of shetland?

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  • 1 month later...

Its really quite hard to comment on the economics of this unless you have an idea of the costs involved. I as a gut feeling would have felt that to buy a plane for an operator to use MAY be cost effective however I think again from a gut feeling that also buying a second spare one is tending towards being less justifiable.

 

Really they would have had to have tendered on two basis ie supply of planes + backup aircraft included or SIC supply of Aircraft + backup. Then you can have a fair crack at getting the sums right. Of course its never as simple as that in real life with large lead times for new aircraft etc, but something along those lines should have been done, maybe it was?

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  • 5 weeks later...

Following the tragic accident with an Islander aircraft on air ambulance duties trying to land at Campbeltown last year, the recommendations seem to be that, having 2 pilots might have prevented this.

As the SIC have joined the aviation world buy purchasing an Islander (or two?) should they not be looking at doubling up the pilots on the inter-island route? What price safety?

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The SIC haven't really joined the aviation world. Yes they have purchased an Islander aircraft, but it is being operated and crewed by DirectFlight. They have the Air Operator Certificate, which is required for the operation of commercial aircraft, not the Cooncil

 

The argument of 2 pilots surfaces everytime there is an accident with a smaller plane. Current UK legislation allows a plane with nine seats or less to be operated with just one pilot so that is what airlines do. If they provide a second pilot then he/she has to be paid, which means the aircraft have to make more money, which means the fares have to go up.......and so on and so on. The flip side of the argument is that, God forbid, a nine seat plane should come to grief with 2 pilots on board then one of them need not have been there.

 

In the grand scheme of things £600,000 for an Islander (the figure quoted in the press at the time if memory serves me correct) is small change compared to the £6m for each of the new Yell sound ferries.

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