What argument are you trying to make exactly?
The assertion was that this commuter town, half an hour from Aberdeen, was remote, and had so little "to do" there that one of the few options was drinking.
That's the context of the claim that it's "remote". We can talk about remoteness as a measure of distance, either in time or space, from larger population centres, in which case it becomes a completely relative measure. So on what scale are you measuring this remoteness and why? It looks like you want to look at things globally and are focussed on international aviation hubs. In that case, do you think the residents of Aberdeen and immediate environs have difficult access to those hubs compared to most of earth's population?
A more relevant measure - based on the "nothing much to do there other than drink" assertion, would be access to goods and services. Compared to the general population of the UK (let alone the world) does someone 15 miles from Aberdeen have a low level of access to goods and services? They are half an hour from a city where you can find pretty much anything that you can find in any town in the UK.
If you're on an island in the Hebrides with three ferry services to the mainland a week, and then a five hour drive to the nearest town with a similar range of goods and services as can be found in Aberdeen, then you can meaningfully talk about remoteness, at least relative to the bulk of UK population.
You lot that think somewhere just outside Aberdeen is "remote" are simply ignorant, and judging remoteness by "I'm not sure I can get an Uber there from my house". Reflecting on things I feel sorry for you, that your horizons are so small that the only thing you can conceptualise doing in places that aren't virtually next door to Heathrow Airport is getting drunk, which would no doubt soon be followed by ranting at the locals expounding some unpleasant aspect of your narrow-minded worldview.
Well let's look at those services shall we?
First, no railway station. That's not helpful.
It has a farmers market once a month.
There's a swimming pool and a health centre, plus a youth centre and a park and ride facility. Population is just over 10,000 according to the ASPC (Local estate agents network).
There's three primary schools and one secondary school. It does have a library open six days a week, five of those until 7.30pm.
There is also a community centre which runs a wide variety of classes and events, and a Sunday cinema which seems to run a few times a month. Plus it can be booked for weddings or birthdays and so on. Want to go to the cinema on any other night though, or not their limited releases, you'll need to go to Aberdeen.
There's no hospital, nearest would in Aberdeen.
From the park and ride, its roughly an hour to Aberdeen. Stagecoach run a mostly hourly service (hourly in rush hour, looks like every 90 minutes outside those time periods and last service is 6.30pm on weekdays. No stagecoach buses on a Sunday on that route). There's an hourly service on a different route on a Sunday, but it takes 90 minutes and last bus back from Aberdeen is 6.20pm. A different website claims there's a later bus at 8.20 during the week but knowing the vagaries of stagecoach I'm not 100% convinced.
There are a number of restaurants in Ellon, covering a few different cuisines such as Indian, Italian and Chinese as well as traditional Scottish food. If you want chain restaurants Aberdeen is the nearest place. There's several bars in the area.
There's a few supermarkets - co-op, tesco and aldi.
So not too badly served within the town itself, but as with many small towns public transport appears inadequate and time-consuming. Plus a hospital is far away if you become critically ill.
