I flew in from Venice to SOU the evening on KLM via Amsterdam and both flights were full almost which was good to see, although I was the only person in Business Class from Amsterdam to Southampton on the evening flight.
What I did notice though that Southampton will need to improve their ground handling for Arrivals as when there could be two or maybe even 3 180-190 seat aircraft arriving at around the same time when the airport would simply struggle to cope with the Arrivals, the Border Force check controls (which are time consuming) and then the Baggage Reclaim area, so they do need to look at that once once an airline decides to operate in to Southampton with larger aircraft on a regular basis.
Baggage Handling and the Loading at both VCE and AMS was a complete shambles and caused lengthy delays to both flight's departures.
My commiserations to both of Flight Deck crews who seemingly have to endure this on many flights these days.
If I had taken the later VCE-AMS flight I wouldn't have made the 'booked' 45 minute connection from AMS to SOU.
Ground handling on arrival at SOU was OK, apart from just 1 Border Force desk open initially - but once the line was almost out of the door then desk #2 opened.
I was in the first 5 off so was not really an issue for me.