Aberdeen Airport handles three million passengers a year. These aren’t huge numbers compared to the largest airfields in the world. But almost half a million of these passengers are taking off and landing not by plane, but by helicopter.

In fact, almost half of Aberdeen’s routes (some 37,000) are rotorcraft flights. Almost all of them are connections with the platforms on the North Sea.

Seen from one end, the airport’s main runway touches the sky. There, all the vanishing lines meet the horizon, and Scotland’s greenery gives way to the clouds’ colors. The runway was expanded and renovated since Ferrovial took over the airport’s management. It features a passenger terminal for commercial flights that was updated in 2019. There are also four smaller terminals exclusively for trips to the North Sea.

Aberdeen’s past as a fishing town with a modest textile and paper industry is long gone. Today, the city is inevitably linked to the oil fields along its northern borders, as well as the comings and goings of the platforms’ workers. This airport has become the main transportation hub in Northeast Scotland and a center of economic development for the entire region. It has 90 employees on staff and creates 3,400 additional jobs.