Southampton-2
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Totally agree, and add their comments of support on the planning portal. Aviation is going to look very different when normality returns, but a reset button is most of the time a good thing. It means various businesses can start again as much leaner operations. It is no different to what happened after 9/11, things always return to normal, it just keeps over-expansion and greed in check.
For those who come on to the SOU thread to advocate it is turned into housing, first of all it is designated land which cannot be used for housing. Secondly, and as I have said numerous times on this thread, people need and want to fly to Southampton and the wider Hampshire area. Like with any big city! Lastly, really take a look at yourselves if you have become so worked up about an inanimate object that you spend your days posting negative comments about it. You have really reached rock bottom if that is your life.
Also, another gentle reminder to keep ignoring the resident troll. Unfortunately a couple of posters have taken a few bites which will sustain him for another few weeks on here no doubt.
For those who come on to the SOU thread to advocate it is turned into housing, first of all it is designated land which cannot be used for housing. Secondly, and as I have said numerous times on this thread, people need and want to fly to Southampton and the wider Hampshire area. Like with any big city! Lastly, really take a look at yourselves if you have become so worked up about an inanimate object that you spend your days posting negative comments about it. You have really reached rock bottom if that is your life.
Also, another gentle reminder to keep ignoring the resident troll. Unfortunately a couple of posters have taken a few bites which will sustain him for another few weeks on here no doubt.
Join Date: Jul 2002
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As I pointed out in the VS thread Virgin only employ just over 7000 staff so a bailout could be in the region of £100,000 per employee.
Folk need to remember that bailouts will have to be paid for one day by the tax payer. Southampton will survive but people need to be realistic in their aspirations as to what the government pays for.
Join Date: Dec 2011
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I agree, domestic air travel plays a part in this country's transport infrastructure whether people like it or not. There seem to be two issues though when it comes to funding, firstly any funding appears to go towards preposterous routes that even on paper don't sound like they are necessary. Personally, if you live in the middle of nowhere you have to go without certain things, air travel should certainly be one of them. Secondly and most importantly the emission figures are always damming when you compare air travel with other modes of transport, so it would be an own-goal for the government to promote air travel. I suspect that these figures are not strictly correct, as transport routes on land are congested, so assuming a land journey runs as smoothly as a flight is stupid (there is a lot of stopping and starting not to mention impacting on other users of land routes). The air travel industry does not seem to learn its lesson though, a crisis comes along and strips everything back to the essentials, only for ridiculous routes like NQY - ABZ etc to appear when things are good. The failure of the A380 is another example of how ridiculous the air industry is.
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Join Date: May 2009
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More small good news!
TUI have put flights and holidays to Palma for sale for 2021 and the frequency has returned to 2 weekly (Tue/Sat) both operated by Volotea.
Bookable between 25/05 and 23/10 (operates Sat only in October).
Bookable between 25/05 and 23/10 (operates Sat only in October).
Join Date: May 2009
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SOU Post Covid?
Not much to discuss in terms of what is happening at the moment at the airport, but I'll summarise below. Probably the quietest it has been since WW2 from a commercial perspective!
- Aurigny flying 5x weekly to Guernsey (Mon-Fri) on an ATR72.
- Blue Islands flying 3x weekly to Jersey (Mon, Weds, Fri) on an ATR72.
- Medical flights also being accommodated.
Thought it would be interesting to start to have a look into where things will be when things slowly start to improve. As it stands, Aurigny, Blue Islands, Loganair and Eastern are all expecting to be operating a fairly normal schedule from 1st June. This is of course an arbitrary date subject to change (next weeks planned announcement regarding the gradual wind back of lockdown measures will be key to this), and while full schedules are on sale I would expect a gradual ramp up of frequencies is what actually happens.
One thing that is clear is that international travel is likely to be limited for a least the next few months. For SOU, this may not be such a bad thing, as the loss of Flybe 2 months ago already gave the airport the knockout blow for that traffic 3-4 weeks before most other UK airports felt the same. Don't get me wrong it was still awful news and I have the upmost sympathy for anyone who was affected by Flybe and Covid-19. However, as it stands the only current services that will be affected by this is the weekly TUI flight to Palma, and a delay to Eastern starting Dublin (although I could see a situation where travel in the 'common travel area' (UK, ROI, IOM, CI) is opened up more eagerly than to the rest of Europe). The current SOU route selection is otherwise entirely domestic and to the channel isles.
Otherwise, I think subject to the testing situation improving in the UK (ramping up track and trace, getting a reliable antibody test) we could see a fairly quick bounce back of domestic flying in the UK. There will be some losses from individuals being wary of using any forms of public transport, and the continuation of home working in some areas, but these may be offset to an extent by leisure travellers choosing to travel within the UK rather than overseas as it will be perceived as 'safer'. The recent EZY route announcements seem to support this view (I am aware much of this will be back filling former Flybe capacity). They are increasing frequencies on EDI/GLA-BHX and most BFS-UK routes this winter, and starting a daily MAN-ABZ route at the end of August. I did see a suggestion on another thread that the increase in flights from BFS would require an extra aircraft to be based there, potentially allowing for an extra route to be added?
Pure speculation, but I wonder what the chances are of them starting BFS-SOU are, and if demand would be sufficient to sustain a ~twice daily service to appeal to business travellers? In its absence, I expect that Eastern will increase SOU-BHD once demand does increase and they have aircraft and crew available. It would be good for the area to see them expand their base a little and employ some of the former Flybe staff.
Be interesting to hear other peoples thoughts on this, but it would be good to keep it as a reasoned discussion and to refrain from too much doom mongering (though it would be naive not to properly acknowledge the current situation we are in).
- Aurigny flying 5x weekly to Guernsey (Mon-Fri) on an ATR72.
- Blue Islands flying 3x weekly to Jersey (Mon, Weds, Fri) on an ATR72.
- Medical flights also being accommodated.
Thought it would be interesting to start to have a look into where things will be when things slowly start to improve. As it stands, Aurigny, Blue Islands, Loganair and Eastern are all expecting to be operating a fairly normal schedule from 1st June. This is of course an arbitrary date subject to change (next weeks planned announcement regarding the gradual wind back of lockdown measures will be key to this), and while full schedules are on sale I would expect a gradual ramp up of frequencies is what actually happens.
One thing that is clear is that international travel is likely to be limited for a least the next few months. For SOU, this may not be such a bad thing, as the loss of Flybe 2 months ago already gave the airport the knockout blow for that traffic 3-4 weeks before most other UK airports felt the same. Don't get me wrong it was still awful news and I have the upmost sympathy for anyone who was affected by Flybe and Covid-19. However, as it stands the only current services that will be affected by this is the weekly TUI flight to Palma, and a delay to Eastern starting Dublin (although I could see a situation where travel in the 'common travel area' (UK, ROI, IOM, CI) is opened up more eagerly than to the rest of Europe). The current SOU route selection is otherwise entirely domestic and to the channel isles.
Otherwise, I think subject to the testing situation improving in the UK (ramping up track and trace, getting a reliable antibody test) we could see a fairly quick bounce back of domestic flying in the UK. There will be some losses from individuals being wary of using any forms of public transport, and the continuation of home working in some areas, but these may be offset to an extent by leisure travellers choosing to travel within the UK rather than overseas as it will be perceived as 'safer'. The recent EZY route announcements seem to support this view (I am aware much of this will be back filling former Flybe capacity). They are increasing frequencies on EDI/GLA-BHX and most BFS-UK routes this winter, and starting a daily MAN-ABZ route at the end of August. I did see a suggestion on another thread that the increase in flights from BFS would require an extra aircraft to be based there, potentially allowing for an extra route to be added?
Pure speculation, but I wonder what the chances are of them starting BFS-SOU are, and if demand would be sufficient to sustain a ~twice daily service to appeal to business travellers? In its absence, I expect that Eastern will increase SOU-BHD once demand does increase and they have aircraft and crew available. It would be good for the area to see them expand their base a little and employ some of the former Flybe staff.
Be interesting to hear other peoples thoughts on this, but it would be good to keep it as a reasoned discussion and to refrain from too much doom mongering (though it would be naive not to properly acknowledge the current situation we are in).
I think life line connectivity such as to/from the Channel islands will be/stay strong especially if EZY and BA do not restart their services from LGW to JER.
As for connections to UK airports, Belfast and say Dublin ?
MAN and EDI there should be a need, and maybe one with BHD or BFS
For international ? It is too soon to say what Countries we can visit in the short term, and who may come along to take those on such as Paris and AMS.
Likewise with Spanish border regulations -
TUI has it's weekly May-Oct charter series Majorca holiday program (Palma, Volotea) but frankly I think holidays to Spain and its islands for summer 2020 will not come back in the short term.
Small series like this one I think may get canned.
That's my Tuppence and that is not even taking into account as to whether any form of social distancing needed will be profitable or possible, in small airliners...
As for connections to UK airports, Belfast and say Dublin ?
MAN and EDI there should be a need, and maybe one with BHD or BFS
For international ? It is too soon to say what Countries we can visit in the short term, and who may come along to take those on such as Paris and AMS.
Likewise with Spanish border regulations -
TUI has it's weekly May-Oct charter series Majorca holiday program (Palma, Volotea) but frankly I think holidays to Spain and its islands for summer 2020 will not come back in the short term.
Small series like this one I think may get canned.
That's my Tuppence and that is not even taking into account as to whether any form of social distancing needed will be profitable or possible, in small airliners...
Who knows what will happen ? Lifeline routes to the C.I.s will "stay strong" - in the sense that they will be absolutely essential; but who , apart from medical cases , will be using them; & in what numbers ? Yes, if these routes remain the only points of access to/from the U.K., then they will certainly be used; but it is very uncertain as to how many people will be using them. I can't see numbers picking up for a considerable time. Very much hope that I am wrong !
Mind you - a couple of Chinooks over the last few days have been keeping low and usually they stop South of Odiham just North of Winch but they're keeping going right down to SOU clattering about and having a good flap about.
Nice sound. Change from the bloody House Sparrows.
Last edited by Auxtank; 7th May 2020 at 18:00. Reason: Edited for Groundloop
Join Date: Dec 2011
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To all the doom merchants on here you might want to look how the crisis has affected even the likes of LHR before singling our SOU. You could of course focus on the fact that the long term tree issue at Marhill Copse is finally being dealt with or that the planning application for the runway extension is still full steam ahead despite the crisis. Not to mention the fact a lot of BEs routes were back filled within a few weeks of BE going bust. I guess some people just live a glass half empty life.
It looks to me increasingly likely that SOU has potentially done a deal with a low cost operator to open up a base at SOU conditional on the runway being extended. I am not saying that this is definitely the case, but pension funds rarely make large investments in assets without a solid return being locked in. It might well be that It is just a speculative investment, but the fact it’s being pursued in a crisis might suggest that the business case/financial reward is still contractually in place. Whilst the aviation industry is going to take time to recover, it always does. 9/11 is the perfect example.
