BOURNEMOUTH - 3
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: somerset
Posts: 120
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
RJ
What is your issue with Bournemouth? I've watched this thread for many years but never seen anyone who seems to have a pathological dislike for an airport before. I can understand your argument that, possibly, Southampton and Bournemouth will not both prosper (or even both survive) in the short / medium term but you seem to wish closure/job losses/misfortune on Bournemouth and the many people employed there. God knows it has issues with poor management and seems to be an asset stripping exercise for MAG but it does serve many businesses and has as much right to succeed as any other business.
What is your issue with Bournemouth? I've watched this thread for many years but never seen anyone who seems to have a pathological dislike for an airport before. I can understand your argument that, possibly, Southampton and Bournemouth will not both prosper (or even both survive) in the short / medium term but you seem to wish closure/job losses/misfortune on Bournemouth and the many people employed there. God knows it has issues with poor management and seems to be an asset stripping exercise for MAG but it does serve many businesses and has as much right to succeed as any other business.
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: The glasshouse, a stone's throw from you
Posts: 219
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Possible, don't feed the BOH troll.
I've PMed him so many times about his conduct on the BOH Thread but still he comes back with negative vitriol and fear of BOH's larger size and suitability as 'better' airport. Yet he clearly doesn't see that BOH isn't just about PAX but maintenance, training (both civil and military), a base for many operators as well as a base for the various air festivals/shows in the south.
It's difficult to argue with an intelligent person but it's impossible to argue with a fool.
I've PMed him so many times about his conduct on the BOH Thread but still he comes back with negative vitriol and fear of BOH's larger size and suitability as 'better' airport. Yet he clearly doesn't see that BOH isn't just about PAX but maintenance, training (both civil and military), a base for many operators as well as a base for the various air festivals/shows in the south.
It's difficult to argue with an intelligent person but it's impossible to argue with a fool.
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Bournemouth, UK
Posts: 84
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
An airport with SOU's accessibility and BOH's runway and land area would trump any other airport on the south coast and would no doubt have the potential to attract considerably more business than both BOU and SOU combined. However that's not the case and each trades off the other weakness, meaning there is room for two 'compromised' south coast airports rather than a single 'perfect' airport. I don't see anything changing in this respect.
SOU - compromised by its runway and apron, suits the short haul business markets
BOU - compromised by its accessibility, suits medium haul (and potentially long haul) LoCo and Charter leisure markets, plus aviation services such as Cobham.
I am sure both have scope to expand and prosper based on their respective areas of strength as the demand and the economy allow.
SOU - compromised by its runway and apron, suits the short haul business markets
BOU - compromised by its accessibility, suits medium haul (and potentially long haul) LoCo and Charter leisure markets, plus aviation services such as Cobham.
I am sure both have scope to expand and prosper based on their respective areas of strength as the demand and the economy allow.
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Waters edge
Posts: 446
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Forecast
Knife edge has at last hit the nail on the head!
Perhaps its useful to look at the trends in air transport to identify what growth will occur over the next 5 years south of Birmingham. Passenger traffic is forecast to grow globally at nearly 5% annually to 2032. UK is a strong performer
We know that the top 5 London airports are completely full, they have no runways slots available early or late in the day, or in the case of LHR and LGW, no slots available at all. No new based aircraft can be accepted. Bigger aircraft or other airports are the only options.
Second we know that the LCC in particular are dealing with this by deploying larger aircraft, 737 max for RYR, for easyjet it is expected that some A320neo will be switched to A321neo (40% larger than A319). We also know that RYR and EZY both have a growth strategy to go after the legacy carriers business from the major hubs. The LCC market share is still low in Germany, France and the Netherlands - which is where they are going next. We also know that the LCC need year round profitable demand for their expensive new aircraft – big cities.
Third, we know that the 3 Gulf carriers and Turkish are hoovering up all the long haul traffic headed to the east and south of Europe. EK even add A380 service to BHX this year. The legacy transfer traffic at the European hubs is falling alarmingly as passengers choose the Gulf and Turkish alternatives.
Fourth, IAG purchased Aer lingus intending to make Dublin the Transatlantic hub for Europe, feeding Dublin from secondary cities. Wow has the same idea using Reykjavik as the European hub to the US and Canada.
Lastly and inevitably, in England, the charter and holiday operators and the corporate operators will be forced out of the London airports to less constrained runways elsewhere. It is also likely that the charter operators will be increasingly obliged to shrink their Gatwick and Stansted operations to their larger aircraft types.
There is already evidence that Birmingham and Bristol are sweeping up the resulting demand by providing an alternative to the London airports. There are frequent new route announcements. TK is almost a no-brainer for a Bristol service. Southend will inevitably grow as Stansted fills (imminent), Luton will start to squeeze out the corporates – my guess is to Farnborough, even Norholt.
KLM is already reacting by adding destinations to boost their AMS hub that neither TK or the Gulf carriers can reach. I think Aer Lingus will do the same from Dublin.
So what does that mean for the south coast airports?
Exeter will always play second fiddle to Bristol not much more than an hours drive away and will stick at more or less 1m pax.
Bournemouth has the runway, has proven demand to support regular service by Ryanair to the big 5 holiday spots (PMI, AGP, ALC, FAO and BCN) and within five years will likely see holiday charter and cruise growth. But not much, it will probably stick at sub 1m pax for the next 5 years and will be mostly dependent on Ryanair for any significant growth. There is an outside chance that Blue islands will introduce a Jersey service in summer 2017 and Aer Lingus back to Dublin, similar time scales.
Southampton is interesting for other reasons despite the excellent rail link, its runway is too short for any regular unrestricted operations by the LCC to anywhere the demand justifies the larger aircraft size. The KLM move to SOU makes sense, they have to add UK regional airports, I think they will push Flybe off the SOU/AMS route and by 2017 go to 3xdaily.
Air France might try to do the same with SOU/CDG but Flybe are the better bet there. The sun routes from SOU just can’t compete with the alternatives available elsewhere, so I think Volotea will most likely be a one season wonder. Flybe clearly can’t make the E195 work profitably on those routes except in absolute peak season, even with fuel as cheap as it is, which is why the aircraft have gone elsewhere.
All in all its hard to see SOU climbing above its routine performance of sub 2m pax by 2020.
The airports for significant growth % in the Southern half of England, away from London, are really only BRS and BHX.
But all the airports will do just fine. There is plenty of money and much less cost in tin pots.
FF
Perhaps its useful to look at the trends in air transport to identify what growth will occur over the next 5 years south of Birmingham. Passenger traffic is forecast to grow globally at nearly 5% annually to 2032. UK is a strong performer
We know that the top 5 London airports are completely full, they have no runways slots available early or late in the day, or in the case of LHR and LGW, no slots available at all. No new based aircraft can be accepted. Bigger aircraft or other airports are the only options.
Second we know that the LCC in particular are dealing with this by deploying larger aircraft, 737 max for RYR, for easyjet it is expected that some A320neo will be switched to A321neo (40% larger than A319). We also know that RYR and EZY both have a growth strategy to go after the legacy carriers business from the major hubs. The LCC market share is still low in Germany, France and the Netherlands - which is where they are going next. We also know that the LCC need year round profitable demand for their expensive new aircraft – big cities.
Third, we know that the 3 Gulf carriers and Turkish are hoovering up all the long haul traffic headed to the east and south of Europe. EK even add A380 service to BHX this year. The legacy transfer traffic at the European hubs is falling alarmingly as passengers choose the Gulf and Turkish alternatives.
Fourth, IAG purchased Aer lingus intending to make Dublin the Transatlantic hub for Europe, feeding Dublin from secondary cities. Wow has the same idea using Reykjavik as the European hub to the US and Canada.
Lastly and inevitably, in England, the charter and holiday operators and the corporate operators will be forced out of the London airports to less constrained runways elsewhere. It is also likely that the charter operators will be increasingly obliged to shrink their Gatwick and Stansted operations to their larger aircraft types.
There is already evidence that Birmingham and Bristol are sweeping up the resulting demand by providing an alternative to the London airports. There are frequent new route announcements. TK is almost a no-brainer for a Bristol service. Southend will inevitably grow as Stansted fills (imminent), Luton will start to squeeze out the corporates – my guess is to Farnborough, even Norholt.
KLM is already reacting by adding destinations to boost their AMS hub that neither TK or the Gulf carriers can reach. I think Aer Lingus will do the same from Dublin.
So what does that mean for the south coast airports?
Exeter will always play second fiddle to Bristol not much more than an hours drive away and will stick at more or less 1m pax.
Bournemouth has the runway, has proven demand to support regular service by Ryanair to the big 5 holiday spots (PMI, AGP, ALC, FAO and BCN) and within five years will likely see holiday charter and cruise growth. But not much, it will probably stick at sub 1m pax for the next 5 years and will be mostly dependent on Ryanair for any significant growth. There is an outside chance that Blue islands will introduce a Jersey service in summer 2017 and Aer Lingus back to Dublin, similar time scales.
Southampton is interesting for other reasons despite the excellent rail link, its runway is too short for any regular unrestricted operations by the LCC to anywhere the demand justifies the larger aircraft size. The KLM move to SOU makes sense, they have to add UK regional airports, I think they will push Flybe off the SOU/AMS route and by 2017 go to 3xdaily.
Air France might try to do the same with SOU/CDG but Flybe are the better bet there. The sun routes from SOU just can’t compete with the alternatives available elsewhere, so I think Volotea will most likely be a one season wonder. Flybe clearly can’t make the E195 work profitably on those routes except in absolute peak season, even with fuel as cheap as it is, which is why the aircraft have gone elsewhere.
All in all its hard to see SOU climbing above its routine performance of sub 2m pax by 2020.
The airports for significant growth % in the Southern half of England, away from London, are really only BRS and BHX.
But all the airports will do just fine. There is plenty of money and much less cost in tin pots.
FF
FF - many thanks for your interesting post. One slight issue - you tried to discuss what would happen to south coast airports but omitted Shoreham and Lydd. Perhaps these could become new relievers to Gatwick ? 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Waters edge
Posts: 446
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
If on the other hand you had mentioned Brize Norton.... FF
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Brighton uk
Posts: 1,098
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
And finally back to normal posts once again ......
Ryanair have started to add a few extra flights for the summer , perhaps in the anticipation that Flybe were not operating the sun destinations from Southampton
Alicante goes to 5 a week during July / August
Malaga goes up to 6 a week and daily during August
Las Palmas goes 2 a week from June
This is in addition to extra Palma and Faro flights this year
Thomson 787 due out on Sat to Barbados with 2 in Feb and 1 in March all P &O and Hays charter related flights
Ryanair have started to add a few extra flights for the summer , perhaps in the anticipation that Flybe were not operating the sun destinations from Southampton
Alicante goes to 5 a week during July / August
Malaga goes up to 6 a week and daily during August
Las Palmas goes 2 a week from June
This is in addition to extra Palma and Faro flights this year
Thomson 787 due out on Sat to Barbados with 2 in Feb and 1 in March all P &O and Hays charter related flights
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: UK
Posts: 615
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Spain market is massive from BOH
In my opinion Ryanair should be operating double daily Palma and daily Barcelona, daily, Malaga, daily Alicante, daily Faro and daily Tenerife. And that's just for starters.
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Bournemouth
Posts: 96
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Excellent post Flitefone. FR is the only operator likely to grow at BOH and as has just been posted have added additional flights for summer 2016. I would say,once more of their new aircraft become available we may see 2 based planes at BOH in the next 2-3 years. Still think Easy Jet could, if not having a based plane there, introduce a couple more destinations. Geneva does well for them.
As much as I dislike the tone of Rivet Joints post, he is right in a way that BOH and business orientated routes just don't work. Leave those to SOU.
As much as I dislike the tone of Rivet Joints post, he is right in a way that BOH and business orientated routes just don't work. Leave those to SOU.
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 884
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Not so sure about Ryanair but the pricing of Volotea seems very competitive when comparing against Flybe at SOU, Volotea have also had a head start on Flybe with bookings and also offer a jet service!
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: The glasshouse, a stone's throw from you
Posts: 219
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
As much as I dislike the tone of Rivet Joints post, he is right in a way that BOH and business orientated routes just don't work. Leave those to SOU.
Flybe only flew from BOH to screw SOU for a better deal.