Originally Posted by
SotonFlightpath
A devastating blow for SOU, but I believe the airport will bounce back. It’s worth remembering that the financial problems lay with Flybe, not with most of the routes from Southampton. The ‘core routes’ to Manchester, Edinburgh’ Glasgow, Ireland and the Channel Islands are all exceptionally well-used and profitable, and AMS and CDG perform well too.
There will obviously be a disastrous short-term down-turn with the suspension of these services, but in the medium term these core routes will either return with a similar frequency with a mix of other regional carriers, Aer Lingus Regional, Eastern, Loganair, Blue Islands, Aurigny, KLM, or with easyJet ‘cherry picking’ a few domestic routes offering a couple of services a day. And yes, an A319/A320 can operate on these short routes perfectly well.
The demand is clearly there’ and the market will respond in the appropriate way.
While the new owners of Flybe are not blameless, for example when they left DA, their reply to the outrage , was " we will continue key routes but stuck to one aircraft type based at Belfast " ( words to that effect ).
But they didn't Stick to just the Dash 8, they had ageing ' E175/190/195, ATR, Dash 8, and perhaps someone can confirm some smaller props to serve Highland and islands destinations.
It's not so long ago up in Donegal they where operating to Glasgow and I think Manchester .
But back to the point , it cannot have bee. Easy or cheap to maintain such a mixed fleet .
Also they fro. DSA operated to Palma and Alicante , now the big operations like TUI and Easyjet might have afforded the landing slots again that was a. Ost that had they have concentrated on Dash8/ Domestic routes only ( With DUB/AMS/CDG) ,and anything in reasonable range that would be a sure bet to fill such an air raft .
Ought to have saved their bacon, but I blame Govt for not getting rid of APD as well, it's killed too many airlines ( or been a factor ) , even looking at FR24 today is strange seeing only EZY/RYR and a few foreign airlines about .
Surely the GOVT can step in and Nationalise them?, The service they provide re lifeline services in some regions .and the economy already hit byBrexit and Covid19 can it take another shocker.
Southampton is hellish as it took all the cruise flight routes . I just feel so very sorry for the good decent people on the ' coal face ' who worked at Flybe and up and down the supply chain, who are suddenly on the scrap heap .
Again time Govt steps in,and BA was originally a nationalised airline so it's not as if they haven't done it before.