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From August 16, travellers using Aberdeen Airport will be able to take advantage of a new bus service, designed to improve transport links between the Scottish hub and the city centre.

The route will be operated by Stagecoach Bluebird between 0.435 and 22.00 every day except Sunday. Local councillors have welcomed the addition, calling the new 727 service a ‘boon to the travelling public.’

Aberdeen councillor, Kevin Stewart, explained that previous city-airport bus routes had been disappointing; in fact, a similar service between Aberdeen and Dyce, where the airport is located, had recently been cancelled.

“I am absolutely delighted with the new service,” Stewart explained. “Buses from the city to the airport have not been the best in the past. I hope that this new service will attract more folk onto the buses.”

Departing every 30 minutes from the Union Square Shopping Centre in Aberdeen, the 727 bus travels direct to the airport, seven miles northwest of the city. The timetable alters slightly on a Sunday, beginning at 06.45, and running every 90 minutes until 21.45.

The bus service arrives as Aberdeen’s cousin, Edinburgh Airport, is exchanging blows with local councillors over its controversial £1 drop-off fee. The two events might appear unrelated, but both are ostensibly traffic calming measures, designed to unclog airport forecourts, and prevent local villages becoming car parks.

Aberdeen has refused to implement a parking levy of its own, perhaps after witnessing the backlash to Edinburgh’s drop-off fee, but the new 727 bus should still be instrumental in removing private vehicles from nearby roads.

Aberdeen Airport has bucked a growing trend in ‘pay-as-you-stay’ car parks, by declaring that it will not charge a £1 levy on drivers wanting to the use the hub’s drop-off zones. The Scottish site, which is owned by the British Airports Authority (BAA), would have been the third airport in two months to impose the fee on the travelling public.

Newcastle and Edinburgh airports faced heavy criticism when the parking scheme was introduced, with Scottish MP, Gavin Brown, calling the £1 charge, ‘opportunistic’ and ‘particularly mean.’ Drivers in Newcastle claimed to have been ‘ambushed’ with the fee at the airport gate, after advisory signs went unnoticed.

Edinburgh’s new parking policy led some observers to accuse the BAA of profiteering, an allegation that was quickly denied by airport boss, Gordon Dewar – ‘the £1 fee is not mean, as it has been described. It is a modest charge that will allow us to invest in our airport. The alternative is a higher cost to airlines.’

The BAA’s decision not to operate the same policy at Aberdeen suggests that the aviation giant is trying to save face, rather than scrapping it of its own volition. The £1 charge was regarded in the press as a means of preying on people who would otherwise spend nothing at the airport, such as the relatives of travellers.

A spokesperson for Aberdeen Airport has claimed that the BAA had nothing to do with the controversial levy, however, and that all decisions on parking policies were made by the in-house management team. If Glasgow Airport, another BAA hub, hadn't been considering a drop-off fee of its own, Aberdeen’s spirited defence of its owner might have been more convincing.

Strangely, apart from the BAA, the scheme’s biggest supporter in the aviation industry is budget airline, Ryanair. The carrier's bitter rival, EasyJet, recently criticised the £1 levy, which is likely the reason why Ryanair has defied both passengers and airlines in declaring its allegiance to Edinburgh’s new parking policy.

On Friday, nine protestors were convicted of causing a disturbance at Aberdeen Airport. The defendants, all from the Plane Stupid campaign group, were charged with disturbing the peace, and could be sent to prison when sentencing begins in August.

Plane Stupid has busied itself with 'bringing the aviation industry back down to earth' since its creation in 2005. The group claims to favour non-violent direct action, taking inspiration from Nelson Mandela's fight against apartheid and a string of other people that have come to be revered for their courage in the face of adversity.

'If it wasn't for direct action, Mandela would still be in jail. India would still be a British colony and Rosa Park's grandkids would be at the back of the bus,' explains the group's mysterious founder, Barry. Plane Stupid isn't changing the world though – the group offers minor acts of vandalism as a deterrent to building new runways.

The incident at Aberdeen Airport last year was in response to plans by US billionaire, Donald Trump, to build a £750m golf complex near the Scottish city. Protestors broke into the airport during the early hours, scaled the roof of the terminal, and played golf on the taxiway. Bosses claim that around 20 flights were delayed.

Police managed to arrest the campaigners after a constable (wrongly) informed the group's leader that their presence was preventing an air ambulance from reaching its destination. Plane Stupid then went to court on Friday convinced of a legal victory similar to that won by Greenpeace at Kingsnorth Power Station in 2008.

The famous campaign group managed to convince a jury that direct action and minor vandalism could be justified with evidence for accelerating climate change. Plane Stupid used a similar defence in its trial on Friday, but the court was not convinced, and ruled against the nine defendants.

A spokesperson for Aberdeen emphasised that the airport was not taking a stand against climate campaigners, but against individuals and groups who acted 'irresponsibly.'

Aberdeen Airport, one of many hundreds of sites to have been affected by the fallout of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, was described as ‘eerie’ last week, as passengers were forced to abandon all flights from the Scottish airport.

The news is no longer a surprise – five days of cancellations has hardened the press to further problems, and National Air Traffic Services (NATS) have been issuing further flight bans as a matter of course, regardless of how much the aviation industry complains.

Skies appear to be brightening over the most northern reaches of the UK, but the damage caused by Eyjafjoll’s volcanic tantrums will not become apparent for weeks. The immediate consequences are startling, however.

On Thursday, Aberdeen Airport closed its heliport to airborne traffic, stranding hundreds of platform workers in the terminals and out in the furthest reaches of the North Sea. The heliport at Humberside Airport was similarly affected, after three helicopter companies grounded everything that could fly.

Many platform workers are still waiting for a lift out to the North Sea, and promises of a partial lift of the flight ban in Scotland and Northern Ireland will delight more than a few people when it comes into effect on Tuesday morning.

NATS will allow all mainland airports north of Blackpool and Teesside to reopen at 0700 tomorrow morning. This includes Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Inverness, and Prestwick airports. Island hubs such as Sumburgh Airport on the Shetlands may be restricted until the evening.

A statement on the NATS website was optimistic - ‘assuming there are no further significant ash emissions, we are now looking at a continuously improving situation.’ The decision to reopen English and Welsh airports has not yet been made, however.

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Thomas Cook has renewed its commitment to Aberdeen Airport. The airline will add a minimum of six new routes to its summer schedule, flying to destinations in Turkey and Spain from summer 2010.

Aberdeen was rocked by the collapse of Flyglobespan over the festive season – dozens of flights were dissolved overnight, and stranded customers were forced to purchase rescue fares from profiteering airlines, just so that they could get home for Christmas.

Bosses spent the last few days of 2009 hiding under the covers, waiting for a brave airline to rescue the airport from uncertainty.

Despite vehement criticism by Which? magazine, alluding to its archaic methods and belligerent staff, Thomas Cook is a popular airline, and the oldest package holiday company in the UK.

The firm will offer flights to Dalaman and Antalya in Turkey, as well as three routes to Spain – Ibiza, Reus and Palma. Aberdeen is still trying to find a carrier for five dead routes, including Dubrovnik in Croatia, and the ever-popular Benidorm, Spain.

“We are confident that some of the bigger routes – the most popular ones like Tenerife – will find new operators.” Aberdeen remains optimistic about the future, applauding the recent efforts of Thomas Cook to support the airport.

Aberdeen fell foul of the weather in December, recording a 3.5% drop in passenger numbers over the same period last year.

However, the British Airports Authority (BAA) remains confident that the airport will continue to recover from both the global recession, and the loss of Scotland’s first budget airline, Flyglobespan.

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Aberdeen Launches New Routes

As expansion fever grips Birmingham, Bristol, and London City Airports, Aberdeen unveils its latest development – a smart new parking deck.

Located close to the airport’s main terminal buildings, the £5m car park was completed in just 14 weeks, having been commissioned in late May 2009.

Kevin Brown, managing director at Aberdeen, was quick to point out that a wealth of time and energy had been earmarked for the planning process, helping contractors complete the build “in record time.”

Mr. Brown went on to boast about the affordability of the two-storey deck, claiming to provide the cheapest airport parking in Scotland. However, with a minimum stay of two days, the facility is unlikely to reduce quick ‘kiss and fly’ drop-offs.

In March a £7.2m refurbishment of the airport’s main runway began in earnest – a goliath task designed to extend the life of the asphalt by as much as 15 years. State-of-the-art lighting was also installed on the runway. Both projects are now nearing completion.

Airport staff have been equally enthusiastic about a new Eastern Airways service to the city of Bergen, Norway. The new route, which is expected to operate six days a week, enters the travel guides in October 2009.

Over the past year, BAA (the British Aviation Authority) has reasserted its commitment to Aberdeen Airport by investing more money in infrastructure improvements than ever before.

Booking for Aberdeen’s new parking deck is available at the BAA airport parking website. Spaces are subject to a minimum stay period (six days for long stay, two days for short stay), and cannot be booked on the day of departure.

Earlier this week a blow was dealt to business travellers and holidaymakers alike in the north east of Scotland, with the announcement that two major airlines were planning to scrap some of the services currently offered. This followed news that for the ninth month in a row passenger numbers for the airport had dropped.

Ryanair has announced that as from July it will be reducing flights from Aberdeen to Dublin. At present the low-cost airline operates on four days a week between the two cities, but moves are afoot to reduce this by at least one day following criticism of the charges levied at Aberdeen.

BMI has also indicated that it will be axing its Aberdeen-to-Jersey route this month, a consequence of the cancellation of its Heathrow-to-Jersey service. Since the Aberdeen service was never direct it has become an unwitting casualty of the changes in the Heathrow schedule.

Business leaders for the north east have described the cuts as a huge setback and have expressed concerns that this may be the tip of the iceberg, with other airlines reviewing their schedules as a result of the current economic crisis facing the country.

On a more positive note, Loganair, in conjunction with Flybe, announced earlier this year that as from April a new service from Aberdeen to Cardiff would be introduced. This followed an earlier announcement that Eastern Airways would be expanding their Scandinavian service with a new route from Aberdeen to Oslo supplementing their existing Aberdeen to Stavanger service.

On March 3, numerous flights at Aberdeen Airport were affected due to a group of protestors who broke into the airport and started to play golf on the taxiway while dressed to look like Donald Trump. The protest was designed to express opposition to the proposed expansion of the airport, and focused on Trump because he is opening a luxury golf course nearby and has supported the expansion.

The group of nine protestors from the protest group, Plane Stupid, broke through the perimeter fence shortly after 2am. Seven stayed on the taxiway and two went onto the roof, unfolding a banner reading ‘Nae Trump Games with Climate Change’.

As a result, all of the flights during the early morning were delayed by at least three hours and some incoming flights were cancelled until the resumption of scheduled flights at about 9am.

The group behind the protest claimed that it was to raise awareness of the dangers being faced by climate change and to express their displeasure at the expansion of airports across the country. All nine were arrested.

Plane Stupid has hit the headlines before with its protest at Stansted Airport in December 2008, and we can be sure to expect more from the group in the future.

The day after the protest, the nine protestors all appeared in court charged with vandalism and breach of the peace. They were all released on bail.

However, it has since emerged that amongst those delayed were a cancer patient who was travelling for treatment in Aberdeen, and a helicopter which was flying to Inverness to help a sick child, revealing just how serious such actions can be even if they raise important issues.

You may not think of Aberdeen as having the biggest and busiest airport in Scotland but that might all be about to change soon as they have just been boosted by a huge pot of money to spend and are about to go all out with their cheque book.

£10 million of investment will see Aberdeen moving their base in the very north-east of the country into the 21st Century and towards a much more international market. They have plans set up for a much larger arrivals terminal and walkway for passengers, as well as a lot of work to be done on the parking bays for the aircraft, which have been specially designed to house the latest models of eco-friendly aircraft. The walkway will be one of the big projects and will be a heated two-lane system that aims to reduce the congestion upon arrival and for passengers leaving the airport.

There will be work done on the drop-off areas and taxi points and some additional security measures to protect the front of the terminal. As well as the security aspects, the other topical issue being addressed at Aberdeen is that of the environment and they will be fitting new low-energy light bulbs throughout the site.

The project is being split up into three phases with the first of these being the walkway, which is aimed to be completed by the end of 2009.

There have been two pieces of bad publicity for Aberdeen in the last week: first a drunken stewardess who delayed a flight and now news that thirty five illegal immigrants have been let in through the airport.

A 24 year old bmi cabin crew attendant held up a flight from Aberdeen to Faro last week for six hours, after colleagues became concerned that she may have had too much to drink prior to coming to work. The flight, which had been due to take off at 9am, was delayed until 3.30pm whilst the woman was breathalised and arrested and a replacement steward was arranged. An airport spokesman expressed regret that the 140 passengers had been subjected to such a delay, whilst a bmi spokesman said that the airline were co-operating fully with the enquiry being conducted by Grampian police.

The day before, in an apparently deliberate act, Aberdeen airport was flooded with immigrants from Bolivia travelling via Amsterdam. Forty two arrived on the same flight, five of whom were turned away immediately. The remaining thirty seven were told by officials to return the following day to have their papers processed. There was insufficient room to detain them as forty people were already being held from another flight. Needless to say only two of the thirty seven re-appeared the next day and Tory MSP, Alex Johnstone, has called for an enquiry to ensure that Aberdeen is not seen as a “soft touch”. He called the actions of the immigration officials naive, although the UK Border Agency has sought to down play the incident, assuring the public that names had been checked against a “watch-list”.