SOUTHAMPTON

[Flitefone]

The default position for most people living on the south coast in Hampshire or Dorset, is to use the airport that offers the route, schedule and fare that works for their needs. That invariably means , LHR, LGW or LCY, with the added bonus of a chance of a flight from either SOU or BOH if the Schedules work (nine times in ten they don't) even though the coastal airports are usually the preferred 1st choice.

BRS and EXT are usually just too hard to get to in a reasonable time and almost never feature in plans.

It's almost never a toss up between SOU or BOH, just not enough flights from either.

[Wycombe]

Agree with a lot of what you say Flitefone, but not in the case of the useability of UK (and a few close Continental) trunk routes from SOU, with reference to your "nine in ten times they don't" comment.

The choice/frequency from SOU to places like EDI, GLA, MAN, BHD, DUB and AMS is pretty good, and personally I would always choose to fly from SOU to these places rather than have to do the same through LHR or LGW.

It's just easier/less time-consuming due to proximity of car parking, trains, less distance to walk to through the Airport etc. at SOU.

I say the above as someone who lives slightly closer to LHR than I do to SOU.

[davidjohnson6]

Eastern to Lorient

Eastern previously sold tickets for passenger flights on six dates over July/August between Southampton and Lorient.

These flights have now all been cancelled

[FLYAIR10]

Sadly the figures for VLM are pretty abysmal if correct, 34 for Antwerp and a further 175 for Hamburg. Unless this improve significantly in the next few months I fear VLM's second visit to SOU will be a short one.

Yes,hopefuly figures will improve. The route to Antwerp should have potential though. Southampton airport seems to promote the route on their website,but maybe they should not only focus on the city of Antwerp ,but on the whole area around that city.I believe it's currently the fastest way from Southampton/Portsmouth/Havant/Bournemouth/even Farnborough areas to get in Belgium(Antwerp,Ghent,Brussels...) and the south of The Netherlands (Breda,Tilburg,Eindhoven,...). Also short city-trips to Diamond city Antwerp and the rest of Flanders should appeal. A few years ago I flew from BRU to SOU for a business meeting in Havant .All our colleagues coming through SOU found it much more convenient to come through this airport than through LGW or LHR(what they did before)

Southampton Airport destinations and route map | Southampton Airport

[Rivet Joint]

VLM

I think the route and even the airline itself is set up predominately for business travellers. I think the theory was to connect the 3 ports. Certainly if you look at the prices they are charging you would have to be mad to fly them if you are using your own money. I would hazard a guess that 99% using the route are getting it on expenses with their company. They might be getting the yield despite the low take up with the high ticket prices though.

[FLYAIR10]

I think the route and even the airline itself is set up predominately for business travellers. I think the theory was to connect the 3 ports. Certainly if you look at the prices they are charging you would have to be mad to fly them if you are using your own money. I would hazard a guess that 99% using the route are getting it on expenses with their company. They might be getting the yield despite the low take up with the high ticket prices though.

I would think they are aiming at business-people in the first place indeed.But when you book well in advance you can make use of the promo tariff,which must also be appealing to leisure passengers. e.g. in september a return ticket(promo) SOU-Antwerp currently stands at about GBP102,which is less or similar than a return ticket from SOU to Jersey or let's say Limoges in the same period with Flybe. So VLM can be affordable aswell if you plan in advance. I guess their yield management is similar to that of other airlines these days. The closer you come to the departure date,the more you are likely to pay.

[adfly]

Eastern

Small piece of good news for the winter, reported in the Leeds thread. Since Flybe are (again) dropping SOU-LBA at the end of the summer, Eastern are to increase from 3 to 4 daily from the start of the winter season. Good to see they remain committed to SOU after all of these years!

[adfly]

June 2015

Disappointing June for SOU, passenger numbers down 5%. While Flybe's BOH base has likely affected numbers on the duplicated routes a significant number of other routes also seem to show significant decreases.

Milan and Bastia appear to have got off to a reasonable start and the sun routes all show significant year on year increases.

I do hope another operator will step in next year as there is clearly a strong market for the routes, and it looking increasingly unlikely that they will be operated this winter or next summer.

VLM loads have improved, although the 17% overall mentioned in the VLM thread is still poor. However the reasonably high fares they appear to be charging must be balancing this out to an extent, as the route now looks to be on sale over the winter season.

Flybe's winter schedule still looks rather thin, and who knows when they are gonna release the rest of it, if they do so at all of course...

[Sharklet_321]

Not surprising given BE's reductions on GCI.

I can't believe they have just handed this high frequency route to BI.

Some strange things going on with JER too. The SOU timetable shows just two flights per day by BE. Is this correct?

[GCILover]

I've just looked and make it 5 a day during the week

[adfly]

W15/16 Summary

With little going on currently at SOU and little chance any any significant changes I'll try to summarise the upcoming winter season;

Aurigny -

Alderny will operate at least twice daily (14 weekly) over the winter, although the use of the larger Do228's helps mitigate the smaller number of flights than last year (believe it was 17/18 weekly).

Blue Islands -

Guernsey is similar to last year, at least 21 weekly flights operated by the ATR 72. Obviously chosen to bump fares rather than add flights in response to Flybe throwing in the towel.

Eastern -

Aberdeen seems to be the same as last year, 10 weekly (2x Mon - Thurs, 1x Fri and Sun) all via Leeds.

Leeds increases to 21 weekly (4x Mon-Fri and 1x Sun) as a result of some more towel throwing...

Flybe -

All in all a rather disappointing schedule, if not quite as bad as when it was originally released. No new routes.

Dropped routes:

Aberdeen (Was ~21 weekly via Leeds)
Alicante (2 weekly)
Grenoble (1 weekly)
Guernsey (8 weekly)
Leeds (~21 weekly)
Malaga (2 weekly)
Salzburg (1 weekly)

Xmas only routes:

La Rochelle (1 weekly, was 2 weekly all W14/15)
Limoges (2 weekly, was 4 weekly in W14/15)
Rennes (2 weekly, was up to 6 weekly in W14/15)

Frequency reductions:

Belfast City (16 weekly, was 18 weekly W14/15)
Bergerac (3 weekly, was 4 weekly W14/15)
Dublin (18 weekly, was 27 weekly W14/15)
Manchester (27 weekly, was ~31 weekly W14/15)
Nantes (3 weekly, was 4 weekly W14/15)
Paris Orly (12 weekly, was 17 weekly W14/15)

Further reductions in capacity come from the lack of any E175's or E195's based at SOU.

Inghams -

Innsbruck will operate on Saturdays during the Ski season, flown by Austrian Airlines. Given that Salzburg has been dropped we might see them using an A319/20 to make up for lost capacity.

Total Ski

Weekly (Sunday) flight to Chambery using Germania will operate for the Ski season. Presumably on an A319 or 737 700.

VLM -

Antwerp/Hamburg is continuing over the winter with no change to the frequency (5 weekly Mon-Fri).

[MARKEYD]

Have Flybe released all of the winter programme from Southampton then ?

Trying to think if Grenoble , Salzburg and Lieda was put on later or around about now last year , they need to do it quickly if they want to capture any bookings

[adfly]

'New' Route!

Flybe resuming DUS from late October, as a daily service operating in the evenings. Probably has better timings than when they last operated the route, so I wish them all the best and hope it doesn't get dropped a week before it starts like HAM did last year...

Link here: Flybe to fly Edinburgh-Liverpool and Southampton-Dusseldorf - Business Traveller

In other good news Dublin is now showing as ~4 daily again and a couple of flights per day to Guernsey have appeared.

[gavinhicks]

anyone know how vlm have been doing are the numbers starting to improve

[PPRuNeUser0176]

DUB Winter Service

BE appear to bring back the fourth daily SOU-DUB but cut weekend capacity from 2-1 on Sat and 3-2 on Sun.

[Jerbourg]

SOU - GCI going double daily according to the local GCI press, I hope they can win back island based passengers & get the pax figures they deserve.

[Wycombe]

FR24 reckons that BEE are using a Moldavian F100 out of SOU this morning.

[adfly]

Day Trip anyone?

Omega Holidays are offering a couple of day trips from SOU next April:

Rome on 16th April
Dubrovnik on 17th April

According to the website they will be operated by an Airbus A320, although there is no mention of the airline being used.

[Le Tirer]

There is a link on the website to a brochure for the Dubrovnik trip. This shows the flight being operated by Small Planet Airlines. The flight is not due back into SOU until 23:15 so there must be a good chance of it being diverted to BOH!

LT

[adfly]

August CAA Stats

A mediocre month all in all, passengers down 6.9%, although they remain up by 3.6% over the rolling year. VLM managed a combined average load of about 14 passengers per flight, meaning an average load factor of just 28%. Presumably the yields are reasonable, as it is still bookable throughout the winter. As has already been bought up VLM could do with advertising the route more widely in and around Southampton.

Milan averaged 61 passengers and Bastia averaged 81 passengers, which is not fantastic for the latter given it is an E195 route. However an E175 or Q400 would be a good match for it in the future.

The sun routes all performed well, which it now seems a certainty that ALC/AGP will not run through the winter (quite a few disappointed passengers on their fb page) we will hopefully find out the future of those routes in the summer when Flybe release S16 in October.