Passenger numbers 'definitely on the rise' on Wick/Aberdeen PSO route
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The manager of Wick John O'Groats Airport is optimistic about the prospects for the Aberdeen route, even though passenger numbers haven't reached the level that was hoped for when services were reinstated over a year ago.
Dougie Cook gave an update to members of the Royal Burgh of Wick Community Council at their monthly meeting this week, outlining the impact of Covid-19 and reporting on Eastern Airways' Wick/Aberdeen link – brought back in April 2022 under a public service obligation (PSO).
In a generally positive assessment, he said numbers were "not where we’d hoped, but definitely on the rise".
Mr Cook, who is north airports general manager at Highlands and Islands Airports Limited, also told of Wick's key role in servicing non-scheduled transatlantic flights.
"Passenger numbers at Wick have declined over the years," he explained. "We were up at about 22,500 in 2009 and down to 13,000 just pre-pandemic."
Mr Cook identified various reasons for this trend, including a downturn in Dounreay staff travelling by air, as well as changes to the schedules by the two operators at that time.
He pointed out: "Wick had 33,000 or 34,000 passengers a year in the late 1990s and early 2000s."
Mr Cook recalled how Wick had lost its Edinburgh link just after the start of the pandemic, in early 2020: "Covid-19 was the final straw for the service because the numbers just weren't there."
The Aberdeen service was withdrawn too, leaving Caithness without any scheduled flights until that route was reintroduced 14 months ago. It is operating under a PSO for three years, funded annually by £1 million from Transport Scotland and £300,000 from Highland Council.
Passenger numbers at Wick John O'Groats Airport in the past year were about 9000, Mr Cook said.
"The PSO is operated on behalf of the Scottish Government by Highland Council. But I think they would acknowledge that their numbers haven't hit what they thought they'd hit," he told community councillors at their meeting in the Assembly Rooms.
"I thought 1000 passengers a month would be a success story, considering how far things had slipped pre-Covid. What you're looking at is 800 passengers a month rather than the 1000 that we hoped for."
Mr Cook noted that Eastern Airways had "tweaked" its Wick/Aberdeen schedule for the summer.
"We've seen passenger numbers increase," he said. "They've removed the early-morning and late-night flights from the schedule – they're the ones that were underperforming anyway and added quite a bit of expense to the operation."
There is also increased connectivity through Aberdeen, he pointed out.
Looking at passenger numbers as a whole, he said HIAL is back to about 85 per cent of what it was before the pandemic whereas Wick "is probably about 50 per cent of where it was pre-Covid".
However, he emphasised: "Wick is slightly different from most of the other airports in that we don't solely rely on scheduled traffic."
A key reason for this is the presence of Far North Aviation, formerly run by Andy Bruce and now by Drew Murray. Far North Aviation provides refuelling and ground handling for transatlantic flights that are either heading to North America or arriving into Europe.
"That kept our aircraft movement numbers fairly steady throughout the pandemic – which is quite remarkable really, considering we lost two scheduled operators," Mr Cook said.
"We only saw about a 10 per cent decrease in traffic. That's because they built up what is called ferry flight business.
"We get 80 to 85 per cent of the ferry flights that come through Scotland, which is quite impressive. It's an interesting statistic."
Mr Cook told the meeting that Covid had put paid to a helicopter firm that used Wick for offshore wind workers. He is hopeful that this type of business can build up again, given the growth in offshore renewables under ScotWind leasing.
"We don't see as much oil and gas as we used to," he acknowledged. "That's just a change in the airframes – they can fly for longer so they don't need to fly to Wick as much as they used to when it was the Super Puma.
"It's similar in Kirkwall – they've seen a massive reduction in oil and gas traffic over the years."
Mr Cook also spoke of sustainable aviation testing and the prospect of low-emission planes that could be suitable for smaller airports.
"There are people doing studies on marginal routes and airports," he said. "How can you change these marginal routes into ones that are attractive for someone to run them?"
Community councillor Joanna Coghill declared that the Wick/Aberdeen service represents "value for money" when compared with the cost of road travel. She added: "I can't fault the standard of the flight."
