SOUTHAMPTON

[adfly]

Vueling

Vueling has extended Barcelona and it now operates until the end of October (last bookable day on their website is Saturday the 20th)

[adfly]

Air France and Vueling

Looks as if Air France/Regional have pulled its Saturday flights to Lyon and Nantes which were meant to start this Saturday (30th June) as they are no longer on any of the schedules or bookable.

On a brighter note Vueling launched Barcelona last Saturday (23rd June), does anyone know what the forward bookings are like numbers wise? I would expect them to be fairly good seen as the route has been extended to October and it has also been well advertised in the area.

[hampshireandy]

SOU-FRA withdrawn from early Sept

My flight from SOU-FRA in Oct has been cancelled due to Flybe pulling off the route from early Sept for 'commercial reasons' . I know the flight times were not ideal but anyone know the real reason?
Brussels earlier this year, now Frankfurt. Seems Flybe deems flights to regional French airports more important, and presumably a better 'earner' than flights to major european cities.
Amsterdam next maybe?

[JC25]

What do you mean, the real reason?

I'd have thought commercial reasons would be the real reason... Athough it covers a whole host of possibilities you're unlikey to find out the exact soecifuc thinking behind the change. They have a limited number if aircraft and if the aircraft that operates the SOU-FRA route can make more money deployed elsewhere then of course that is the right thing for BE to do.

With regard to AMS I doubt that will get the chop anytime soon as they've just started a code share agreement with KLM and the route is 3x daily.

It's also worth noting that Flybe have pulled out of FRA altogether now after dropping the long running MAN and BHX connections last year. Clearly Flybe don't see much success at FRA these days so are moving the aircraft to better money making routes.

[hampshireandy]

Ok then, the 'specific' reasons. You have probably covered them in your post. Room at SOU for a daily Lufthansa Frankfurt service maybe?

[adfly]

You'd most likely at least need a morning and evening flight which would then allow day returns and a good choice for onward connecting flights. 12 weekly (2 weekday 1 weekend) on a CRJ700 would probably work pretty well if the times were right and it was well advertised. Could also see 6/12 flights a week to Munich working well, it a major city currently unserved and again LH could offer a good choice of connections through their hub.

[davidjohnson6]

I believe that in 2009, Lufthansa closed their route to Bristol.
Anyone want to make a case for LH starting service from Southampton to Frankfurt, when Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle and Glasgow do not currently have a direct flight to FRA ?

[adfly]

Well first we have LH's huge hub @ FRA and the only other 'hub' operation from SOU is a KLM codeshare on the Flybe AMS flights, whereas the other airports you mention all have links to at least 2 major hubs by other airlines (BA, KL, AF, SN etc). I also think people are generally more likely to book a connecting flight if it is all on the same airline rather than just a codeshare.

Secondly there is obviously a fair amount of O&D between the two cities as the route has lasted quite long and I believe it was said on the Flybe thread by hampshireandy that it always had good loads. And this was despite the fact that there was only 1 flight per day (0 on Sat) and it was poorly timed for business traveller's who would ideally need an early morning and evening flight to allow for a working day.

Two flights per day also help to improve connectivity.

They are the main reasons why I feel a LH route from SOU would work if it were the right frequency's at the right times.

Also not relevant to this post but for anyone interested the BA Firefly A319 is due in at 17:45 tomorrow to take the Olympic flame to the channel islands.

[StGermain]

LH FRA route from Southampton

ADFLY et al, it might be worth looking at the CRJ700 performance criteria at SOU before getting too excited by a possible link to FRA. The runway length vs required payload to reach FRA with a diversion is not really viable. Here's hoping someone else will pick it up though.

[hampshireandy]

LH SOU - FRA

So if a cr7 doesnt fit the bill, Lufthansa Regional have plenty of 190/195's

[adfly]

I always thought the newer CRJ's (700/900/1000) had reasonably good runway performance? They would need at lot of advertising of the route for it to fill an E190 although it could just about work out if done well.

[hampshireandy]

They could probably fill a 190 if it overnighted at SOU and departed at similar times to the AMS and ORY flights to cater for the business market. The flybe early afternoon timings to FRA were a bit odd. Maybe the SOU airport new business team are on the phone to LH as we speak?!

[Rivet Joint]

Fra route

Davidjohnson6: trolling much? Let me guess you are from Bristol .

To start with the route has good loads that have grown and grown despite the fact it operates only once a day and at a dreadful time meaning any business pax have to stop over to get a days business done. Plus Southampton has and is primarily aimed at the business passenger with Frankfurt being one of the big financial centres. So a good start.

Further and perhaps why the route might work better than bristol is that a lot of the armed forces posted in Germany have their bases in hampshire and use this route. Not so sure Bristol has this market.

An erj-190 is not massively bigger than a q400 and lets not forget both Lufthansa and even Air Berlin have q400's in their fleets .

[davidjohnson6]

Rivet - not trying to troll at all - just think that expecting LH to come to Southampton when other larger cities do not have FRA flights needs strong justification to be taken seriously.

You may wish to note that in the late 1990s I lived for over a year less than 30 mins walj from SOU airport

[adfly]

I do see your point davidjohnson6 although the reasons for SOU being a viable route for LH are detailed in both Rivet Joint's and my own posts:

-Hub connectivity - currently only a KLM codeshare from SOU whereas the other airports have links to at least 2 other uk/european hubs each.

-Flybe's route had fairly good loads despite only 1 daily flight which was/is poorly timed for business travellers.

-Strong Military links between Southampton/South Coast and Germany (Remember the AB Paderborn route?)

-Reasonable O&D traffic between the two cities (Leisure pax to FRA and SOU, plenty of cruise pax come from Germany, Language Schools/Foreign Exchanges, Business pax - Frankfurt is a major financial citiy)

So from this although SOU is smaller than the airports mentioned it has plenty of good reasons why it could support such a route and also neither of the other cities have had a route to FRA running in the last few years (BRS is probably the last of them in 2009) whereas Flybe have maintained their poorly timed flight from SOU for quite some time further showing that a LH route could work well.

[MerchantVenturer]

Frankfurt

Further and perhaps why the route might work better than bristol is that a lot of the armed forces posted in Germany have their bases in hampshire and use this route. Not so sure Bristol has this market.

The point about the armed services is certainly true re the Bristol area.

LH operated Bristol-Frankfurt for 13 months from April 2008 until April 2009 using Eurowings Bae 146-300 aircraft. LH picked up the route after Flybe had abandoned it in 2007 following its acquisition of BAConnect. In fact, the route had operated continuously for nearly ten years by BAConnect and its predecessor BA franchisees.

The summer 2008 LH timetable called for 3 rotations each day of the week (21 weekly). Given the size of the aircraft this seemed a touch over optimistic. The winter saw a reduction to 2 x daily during the week and hardly anything at weekends.

Nevertheless, in the 13 months of operation just under 99,000 passengers were carried (CAA stats) and the route was axed in the face of the recession's grip, possibly with an eye to preventing dilution of the company's LHR and BHX routes. BRS was the newest and weakest, so was the obvious one to go in the circumstances.

As always loads do not define profitability but at the time there was much comment in PPRuNe and on other sites as to the high fares.

At another time in the economic cycle the BRS-FRA route might have survived, or it might have required smaller aircraft.

This shows the sort of challenge SOU might face if it is serious about a LH FRA operation.

[nonemmet]

I don't know why the UK military (Army) would be interested in flying to Frankfurt, maybe the US military but not the British Army. The old British sector where the few remaining Army personnel are based is hundreds of km to the North, funnily enough not far from Paderborn. Hannover would be a far more practical route, and...... Flybe still fly from Southampton to Hannover.

[Rivet Joint]

David: Certainly see your point.

I guess me and Adfly although putting forward a convincing argument are being optimistic about attracting LH. However I do still think there is a market for an operator to serve this route. Although I also think a route to Poland seing as Sou is apparently 1/8th Polish is in order yet still nothing .

Nonemmet: you have shown up my limited knowledge re military bases in Germany with aplomb!

[BOHEuropean]

SOU-FRA was always a poor performer with low loads. No surprise to see it finally go after BRU.

[Rivet Joint]

BOHEuropean: Classic trolling. No one take the bait. Thanks for coming Boh, chin up it might never happen .