Originally Posted by
Rivet Joint
Anyone would think there was an international health crisis and a government enforced lockdown in place.....
To all the doom merchants on here you might want to look how the crisis has affected even the likes of LHR before singling our SOU. You could of course focus on the fact that the long term tree issue at Marhill Copse is finally being dealt with or that the planning application for the runway extension is still full steam ahead despite the crisis. Not to mention the fact a lot of BEs routes were back filled within a few weeks of BE going bust. I guess some people just live a glass half empty life.
It looks to me increasingly likely that SOU has potentially done a deal with a low cost operator to open up a base at SOU conditional on the runway being extended. I am not saying that this is definitely the case, but pension funds rarely make large investments in assets without a solid return being locked in. It might well be that It is just a speculative investment, but the fact it’s being pursued in a crisis might suggest that the business case/financial reward is still contractually in place. Whilst the aviation industry is going to take time to recover, it always does. 9/11 is the perfect example.
I would agree with this.
It does seem like easyJet may be on the cards with perhaps a few aircraft to be based at SOU for services to AMS and CDG but also aircraft based around their network in the likes of GLA and EDI flying into SOU. It could be quite a large potential base and wouldn't take too many aircraft (possible 3 at SOU and 3 around the UK?) to take SOU's passenger traffic to 2m or so. They would do well on SOU-BFS, SOU-MAN and SOU-NCL too. Strategically it makes a lot of sense - BRS catchment doesn't really overlap at SOU but they have no presence at LHR so this would be very welcome competition for BA there for people living in the Central South. LGW access is not as good as LHR for this catchment.
I really believe that these types of routes are not suitable to Eastern Airways or Loganair anymore. Loganair needs to be focusing on its core Scottish route network providing lifeline services if they are to come out of this crisis alive.