Originally Posted by
stewyb
The BOH thread has rumours of 4, yes 4, based RYR aircraft for next summer. That would be interesting with their current terminal setup, just like SOU with its limited terminal capacity. It certainly spices up the competition for market share on the south coast, albeit nothing is yet announced for SOU next summer. However we can expect something fairly soon and will no doubt draw away a certain percentage of BOH regulars, interesting times!
As discussed time and time again for many years SOU is not targeting penny pinchers paying a few quid to fly the awful RYR. BOH are probably getting peanuts from RYR to base there in the first place. It’s all just an ancillary operation for BOH to keep their business diverse and of course keep SOU in check. You could see from the extremely jealous and mean spirited letters BOH submitted to object to SOU’s runway extension that they know SOU with a low cost operator will be much more successful than them. Most importantly it looks like SOU will get the best low cost operator of them all in EZY who will not lowball SOU on charges and will be a better fit to the more affluent catchment. I also expect WIZZ to move their Eastern European flights to SOU given the huge Eastern European population there.
So I will say it again, BOH is completely irrelevant to SOU. It’s a poor airport, poorly located, with poor transport links that gets by with Poundland flights. SOU is an airport people actually want to fly from and can conveniently which is why for many many years people have paid a premium to do so. As a long standing poster and one of the few positive people I’m surprised by your post.