Now that December 2023 data is available from the CAA it's interesting to compare Southampton passenger numbers to similar sized airports
Total pax. Note Sept 2017 is missing from CAA data
Pre-pandemic we see the summer peak was trending down for Southampton but up for Cardiff. Southampton has the most passengers during the winter. Bournemouth is doing better now than it was pre-pandemic, leading the pack for 2023:
Total pax
Filtering to just charter traffic shows how Southampton & Inverness differ from Cardiff & Bournemouth
Charter pax
Which is illustrated better here:
Pax by type - Southampton and Inverness are mostly scheduled UK with little or no charter flights
2024 will be very interesting...