Originally Posted by
055166k
DC9 10...great name....fond memories of OH-LYB doing five Liverpool Heathrow returns per day. Talk about pocket rocket!!! Anyway, just finished 44 years 11 and a half months as a Controller, and I've seen an unbelievable change in aviation during four decades.
Southampton-Munich, I wish the airline all the very best. Watch out for a vulture sitting in a tree at Southampton; lets give it a made-up name purely at random such as Befly; lets remember that the West Country almost became an aviation desert, lets remember the old Plymouth operation, lets remember the operator diversity that Southampton once had. How come Southampton-Munich has become the flavour-of-the-month route all of a sudden? Why has another operator suddenly decided to jump on board at rock bottom prices, and will the route collapse and disappear if BMI give it up?
Just a discussion topic really......maybe I've seen it all before!
Flybe do love s
tting on any carrier who dares launch a route from SOU, a good example being SOU-BRU. Eastern used to serve it 3 daily on a J41, Flybe came in a flew it twice daily flooding the route with cheap seats. Eastern dropped the route, Flybe cut it to 5/6 weekly not long after and eventually dropped it as the timings were pretty useless. Eastern had another go more recently but apparently couldn't get good enough slots so the route has been unserved for the last few years.
I hope BMI Regional can sustain the route, and advertise it widely. Incidentally even the airport has only said the bare minimum about Flybe launching SOU-MUC, while they have been quite frequently promoting the BMI Regional route, suggesting they don't like Flybe's tactics either. BMI do have a number of advantages which will hopefully win over business travellers and connecting passengers.
Twice daily flights, around 30 minutes shorter flight time, free bags and snacks and of course the LH codeshare.