I think both sides in the debate over the last few comments have it right in their own ways.
Yes, the Southampton / Bournemouth / Winchester / Salisbury / Basingstoke / Portsmouth / Chichester area has a large catchment area and an airport smack bang in the middle of that area would no doubt be in a good position to attract passengers.
However, as has been rightly pointed out above, the airport in that exact position has been on a bit of a downward curve recently, which begs the question, if the location is so great, why is it not doing better?
My answer to that would be that the section of the market that it serves (UK domestic and short haul European turboprops) is in decline and has been for a while. So the airport feels that decline acutely as that’s most of its traffic.
It can’t do medium or long haul due to its runway, and most people in the area are accustomed to immediately looking to Heathrow or Gatwick for their flights and holidays.
What it needs to do is move up to the next level of the market, namely Loco twins able to fly to holiday destinations. Once it can do that there’s a large market of regular travellers waiting for it who currently fly from elsewhere due to the extremely limited offering SOU currently has.
Business travellers will no doubt stay with their expenses-paid taxis to Heathrow or business parking there, and continue to fly BA for the benefit of their Executive Club accounts, so there’s no point chasing them.
Sun routes are where SOU’s future lies I feel, there’s a huge demand in the local area that currently goes mostly unserved from local airports.
I think the new owners recognise this hence the masterplan.