Aircraft arriving from the UK into JSI Skiathos (or mykonos for instance when their runway was still very short) will of course be much lighter due to the fuel burn and the LDA is fine for types including 757-200 and A320 and 321 except when there has been heavy rain and runway is wet wet wet and diversions are then necessary - as seen recently at the end of the season
The 757 has the best performance and brakes and will be sorely missed by operators and pax.
The SOU flight last summer to JSI was take off payload restricted out of SOU, or would face a stop at Brussels to take on fuel if fully loaded - that would then entail a 3 or 4 sector day for crewing and was likely unworkable even with a short delay...
The reason no stop was needed on the return out of JSI was the already booked restricted payload.
A full load could have been taken out of JSI but a stop on the way home would be likely as I have explained above and below.
Historically, departures from JSI (and JMK and JTR) back to the UK had always stopped at SKG or ATH (Volos or Kavala and CFU in recent years) to take on fuel with the exception of empty legs or very low pax on board where the a/c can make the UK with enough fuel.
At Monarch we flew the 737-200ADV to the islands.
SOU as we know is severely restricted for many take offs to a variety of destinations compounded by runway length, WAT limits, and type of a/c used...
Seems the A320 could be the best fit for airlines expanding at SOU as seen in SEN ops - although KM/air malta have to route their flights to MLA via sardinia or sicily to enable taking a full load out of SEN as MLA is too far to make it non-stop.
EZY do go to MLA and the Canaries but have a restricted payload by 5 to 16 seats on an A320. (180-186 seats)
This is still a BIG aeroplane to fill out of the area although again SEN has seen good growth using this a/c.
The 321 is likely way too big for SOU to fill up and the tail strike concerns would keep the CP very busy -
JSI and JMK can take 321's because they arrive with no fuel thus are light and have departed from airports in Europe with longer runways for a HGW take off.
738 and MAX for now does not have a future at SOU except maybe on short hops taking little fuel, although my pal who skippers both types at Norwegian crunched the numbers for some flights out of SOU and the loads available were completely uneconomical on most Med flights.
He also did it for GIB and again we saw why the 738 and the MAX will not go into Gibraltar.
Last edited by rog747; 17th Dec 2018 at 18:11.