Originally Posted by
RW20
As I said SOU has a vast catchment area,people would love to fly locally,but prices determine PAX numbers,larger capacity plane: lower fares,SOU could have done this,but simply can't ( contrary to other subscribers to this post) it's all about fares and good management!
Exactly - KLM from SOU and the immense AMS onward transfer possibility has to be driven in to the mindset of locals, local businesses and local travel agents alike to THINK to book via AMS iso of the drag up to the LON airports....
KLM only started the SOU route a couple of years ago so it needed to be more developed - seems that did not happen to get the SOU locals on board unlike the folk at MAN LBA NCL NWI BRS CWL etc etc whereby they use the AMS connections fully to their advantage.
I for one was looking to book flights to ATH IST NBO and CPT from/to SOU in the past year and looked at the KLM connections but it simply didn't work due to poor timings or got too expensive - although the IST return at £253 was competitive with LHR except for a 6 hour wait at AMS on the way back so I didn't do it.