One thing that really matters on shorter holiday routes that seems to have been totally overlooked is the shorter summer seasons. while the Canaries, Eastern Med and Egypt are virtually year round, any shorter French / Spanish leisure routes are limited from April till October which would make a year round base all the more difficult with its shorter runway and opening hours. SOU has always been a traditional "regional" base for as long as I can remember and that's where the airport's transport links work so well. If they allow their "traditional" carriers, Loganair, Eastern, Blue Islands, Aurigny, KLM, Aer Lingus etc to be walked all over by Easyjet, then that must surely be a huge risk for the airport to take. It's one thing the airport wishing to expand but they must do it very sympathetically to their existing carriers unless they are happy to loose them. After all, most offer double daily services to other business centres. The current status quo between BOH and SOU has always existed since the days of the Dan Air Link City services out of BOH. Since then it's always been a split market, holidays from BOH, Business form SOU. My view is that this difference will always remain and hence both airports will continue to do what they do best on the South Coast. Two airports serving very different markets. SOU is the London City / Belfast City Airport whilst BOH is the holiday hub. That's not to say that SOU won't do short hops to warmer climes as they already do. Look at the BA flights on the Embraer 190s over the last couple of summers which has worked perfectly for the LCY fleet on W patterns. I don't see that changing massively in the future.