Future expansions ?
Yes BOH needs to up the game with Pax Facilities and Ground Handling.
I 100% love using BOH (and SOU and EXT too) but at BOH;
The Handling Agents, and Security etc, need to have 100% staff on strength by the next Season;
Our Aegean Airways TUI Holidays Charter flight to RHO in SEPT had just one girl checking in 148 pax...and god she was SLOW.
Tedious queue to the Terminal Entrance doors, totally unnecessary, when other ground agent staff are wandering around doing nothing. and with just the one flight arriving and departing.
This is where the based airlines, TUI (especially) and RYR needs to put pressure on their Contracts to be handled way better.
Ryanair suffered a spate of chaotic (sic) handling problems both in the Terminal and on the Ramp last summer, that made it into the Local rag, the Daily Echo.
The BOH Special Assistance Team though are truly marvellous, and looked after my Sister amazingly when we went to RHO.
Thanks Brian and Loretta, you both are a credit to the Airport.
As for a Business Lounge >?
I cannot really see that being worthy of an Investment when the majority of Pax are mainly flying out on seasonal Leisure, or on Low Cost journeys.
Would the Pax pay for Lounge access?, I dunno,maybe...Would you>?
So sorry, Darlings, but this Question is way above my Pay Grade here LOL, so I will leave that to the Management, but IMHO, not worth it when other stuff at BOH needs sorting.
A Lounge would not necessarily be the Jewel in the Crown, as there are few Business Travellers that use BOH.
Historically BOH is a Leisure Airport (and IMHO will remain so, for the foreseeable) with no such airlines flying any Business Routes.
Any Business routes flown out of BOH in the past 30 years have been a flop.
That's SOU, BRS and EXT's job to look after the Businessman.
As for Travel to the Airport;
Most folk Park their cars, or use a Taxi/ or Drop-Off.
The almost non-existent Public Transport bus links (frankly these are untenable) from the Town, or the Station are useless in their current form.
What to do?
Do they do anything to improve connectivity, or stay with the current status quo?
The other issue for Summer expansion is the Airports' Hours of Operation;
We all know of the (too) many TUI Flight Diversions that have caused misery over the past 2 or 3 summers, to 1000's of their Local and Loyal holidaymakers when they have ended up back in LGW, STN, BRS or BHX even.
The cause is due to TUI's second Rotation of the day running behind schedule, and not making it back home in time before BOH shuts, hence the Pax finding themselves at 4am in the morning somewhere else, but not at BOH.
Some of TUI's handling of these Diversions, of which a number that were known would occur by earlier on in the day were very badly managed.
Some known Diversions seemingly had little forward planning at the Outstations to receive these flights in the middle of the night, and had not pre-arranged onward travel for the Pax back to BOH.
This lack of forward thinking leaves much to be desired in terms of Customer Service and Delivery, when someone in TUI Ops knows full well that by lunchtime that day, the TFS, HER or the RHO flying back to BOH was already running so late that making it home before the airport closure would be an inevitable Divert.
This cannot continue for another summer. You really don't want these stories in the Daily Echo again.
This then begs the Q about BOH going to longer opening hours operationally.
Yes, BOH has a much longer runway, which is always an advantage over SOU, and thus can such as cater for the sellout winter Caribbean Fly/Cruise departures, but P&O and other Cruise Lines cannot increase these as much as they would like to from BOH, due to a shortage of long-haul aircraft in the UK.
The Orlando and New York flights flown from BOH in the past were very successful, but today the $ v the £ Exchange Rate inhibits marketing reasonably priced Package Deals,
plus anyway, there is the issue of no spare long-haul Jets around.
EXT for years, used to have a seasonal series of Charter flights to Canada, often flown by a TriStar, or a DC-8 63 (Worldways, Air Transat, and Odyssey etc) but again this business has gone.
It tells you much about BOH Airport when the first Palmair Charter from Hurn took place in 1958, using a single 36-seat Viking aircraft destined for Palma de Mallorca.
The service was one of the first series of package holiday charter flights from the United Kingdom.
And so 65 years on, BOH today remains a Holiday Airport (and also Cargo as always was).