Originally Posted by
RW20
Its not just the runway extension that matters,its the obstacles on 20 climb out including Marhill copse,has anything changed there?
THIS is the pertinent issue that an extra 137m on the end of runway 20 sadly won't solve. SOU is hugely performance limited on that runway due to these trees, and unless the airport can figure out a way around this issue (as the council keep rejecting their woodland management applications), the problem will only get worse as the trees continue to grow.
The runway extension will help a little bit on its own, but I don't think it's enough to suddenly open SOU up to commercially-viable summer jet operations without the obstacle environment changing significantly.
At the moment runway 02 is often requested by the current operators for performance reasons whenever they're heavily loaded due to it's less-restrictive obstacle environment.