Good news!
Let's see what November passenger numbers are like.
I think Cardiff is a great example of what Bournemouth can aim to achieve - in terms of charter/leisure potential. The catchment area volume is similar and the actual passenger volumes on certain leisure routes are already comparable. For example, in 2016 Cardiff handled around 109,000 passengers on its Palma route compared to Bournemouth with 115,000. Some other examples below:
Palma from CWL 109,000 BOH 115,000
Malaga from CWL 82,500 BOH 83,700
Faro from CWL 37,000 BOH 54,000
Barcelona/Girona from CWL 30,000 BOH 44,000
Gran Canaria from CWL 19,000 BOH 35,446
Alicante from CWL 93,000 BOH 65,000
Tenerife from CWL 78,000 BOH 47,000
However the distance between CWL and BRS together with the market potential for scheduled services (i.e inbound Business to a capital city) is very different when compared with BOH and SOU. For example it takes 1 hour 10 mins to drive from Cardiff to Bristol Airport. Compare that with just 35 mins from Bournemouth to Southampton Airport. This would suggest that CWL should sustain its own scheduled services to the likes of Dublin, Amsterdam and UK domestic, but BOH can't.