I'm not sure how good this news really is for SOU. BACF will operate for max 6 months of the year, for 2 days per week. The aircraft and crew will not *really* be based at SOU - it's more akin to a night-stop, so BA are not making any significant commitment to SOU. It didn't matter at STN because BACF were a relatively small player in a very large market - there was plenty of effective clear commitment from Ryanair and Jet2
There is zero chance of BA restarting their SOU base from 15 years ago. I imagine the fees paid by BACF to SOU will be low, not much more than the cost to SOU to provide airport services - and certainly not enough to generate much for the "SOU long term investment" piggy-bank
SOU as a sizeable urban area which is very unlikely to ever have significant inbound seasonal tourism, needs airlines which operate to/from SOU at least 360 days of the year, not an opportunist skimming off the seasonal high-fat cream which will dissuade anybody from setting up a real SOU-centric non-transient operation
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 9th Dec 2020 at 16:09.