Southampton-2

[Rivet Joint]

KLM

And there it is, the good news keeps coming. I hope all the doom merchants on here now feel very stupid. Learn your lesson and keep your negative thoughts to yourselves in future.

As I have kept saying, air travel is dictated by demand, and it is only going to grow and grow as Southampton grows. The demand in the area has barely been tapped into, even when BE were at their largest. The huge Eastern European community for a start are travelling up to Luton just to get a reasonably priced flight. You heard it here first, when the runway gets extended (yes it’s going to happen), Wizzair and EasyJet are going to open routes.

A lot of credit has to go to SOU’s management, the best recovery from an airport ever?

[SWBKCB]

Excluding the French/Sun routes, is at all the BE routes recovered?

[055166k]

Amsterdam is a great hub to start a long haul flight and avoid excessive UK passenger duties. Used it often from Southampton...as well as shorter trips to visit family and friends in Europe. I was gutted when the Dusseldorf flight started to become erratic before finally disappearing, like Hannover a long while back.
LOT have Embraers, surprised they have no interest in the possible euro market. The now defunct Eurolot had ATRs but never showed interest......they wound up a few years after changing to Dash 8-400s I think....sounds familiar.
Just so that you are aware of the scale of the blood-sucking leech add-ons [by others...not KLM] to the wonderful KLM service, here is a breakdown of my last KLM flight SOU-AMS:
4 MAR 2019 KL916
UK International/Domestic Airport Passenger Service Charge.............£22.00
UK Air Passenger Duty........................................................ ..................£13.32
Air Fare [KLM bit ]............................................................ ......................£13.00*******
Total....................................................... .................................................£48.32

That's what it says on the ticket receipt . Hurry back KLM, and super regards to all the positive and supportive comments from all followers of this thread.

[The Nutts Mutts]

Originally Posted by SWBKCB

Excluding the French/Sun routes, is at all the BE routes recovered?

Dusseldorf hasn't come back and I can't see any of the current players trying it. But yes, apart from that.

The biggest gap in the schedule is now Paris. Personally I'd like to see EZY take that on from their CDG base, as it's a big P2P market, but I accept I'm probably being a tad too optimistic there though.

I'm thrilled at how well the airport seems to be bouncing back from Flybe/Covid.

[davidjohnson6]

Domestic routes are largely recovered.... but aircraft size and frequency are not

[Wycombe]

Domestic routes are largely recovered.... but aircraft size and frequency are not

At the current time, correct. Pax no's are reportedly very low. But there are plenty of plans to ramp-up if you look at what the likes of EZE, BCI and LOG are all saying.

It also looks like there will be competition where there wasn't previously, eg, EZE and BCI on MAN and DUB, and we already have LOG and EZE on NCL
(although the capacity that both jointly offer is a lot less than what BEE did previously on their own - hopefully this drives sustainable capacity vs. demand and therefore pricing, and it works for both)

[rog747]

KLM AMS service reinstated

Originally Posted by Charlie Roy

The flight schedule is as follows:

KL0919 departs Amsterdam daily at 4:35pm and arrives in Southampton at 4:45pm.
KL 0920 departs Southampton daily at 5:20pm and arrives in Amsterdam at 7:35pm.

All times are local.

That is a decent bit of news - Hope in time the early morning slot comes back too -
Also you can use your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Miles on this (and earn too) and for the KLM connecting flight to wherever you want head to. Opens up a nice bit of choice.

[SKOJB]

Just need a CDG route opened up and that will be the airports 10 best destinations by pax numbers reinstated, albeit at reduced frequency and capacity at present, good work!

[adfly]

Post Covid Update v4

Things are continuing to look up, so feel as though another update is overdue. Have summarised the current operation then listed any increases by date over the next few weeks.

Currently:

Aurigny

Guernsey - 5 weekly AT7/E95

Blue Islands

Jersey - 7 weekly AT7

Eastern (2x ATR72-600 based)

Belfast City - 5x weekly AT7
Leeds Bradford - 5x weekly J41
Manchester - 5x weekly AT7
Newcastle - 5x weekly AT7

Loganair

Edinburgh - 5x weekly ER4
Glasgow - 5x weekly ER4 (via EDI!)
Newcastle - 4x weekly ER3


From 27/07:

Aurigny

Guernsey - 7x weekly (2x Tues and Thurs for day returns)


From 03/08:

Eastern

Manchester - 9 weekly (2x Mon-Thurs)

Loganair

Edinburgh - 7x weekly ER4
Glasgow - 5x weekly ER4 (now non-stop)
Newcastle - 6x weekly ER3


From 17/08:

Eastern

Dublin - 5x weekly AT7 (new route)


From 31/08:

Aurigny

Alderney - 14 weekly D28 (from 01/09)
Guernsey - 14 weekly AT7 (from 01/09)

Blue Islands (1x ATR72-500 based)

Dublin - 4x weekly AT7 (new route)
Guernsey 12x weekly AT7 (from 01/09)
Jersey - 13x weekly AT7
Manchester - 7x weekly AT7 (new route)

Eastern (2x ATR72-600 based)

Belfast City - 7x weekly AT7
Dublin - 6x weekly AT7
Leeds Bradford - 6x weekly J41
Manchester - 17x weekly AT7
Newcastle - 11 weekly AT7

KLM Cityhopper

Amsterdam - 7x weekly E75 (new route)

Loganair

Aberdeen - 5x weekly ER3 (via NCL)
Edinburgh - 18x weekly ER4
Glasgow - 18x weekly ER4
Newcastle - 17x weekly ER3


From 07/09:

Eastern

Aberdeen - 4x weekly J41 (via MME)
Leeds Bradford - 15x weekly J41
Teesside - 10x weekly J41

Let me know of anything I've missed!

[The Nutts Mutts]

Thanks for the update Adfly. Just to add that it now looks like the Eastern Dublin start date has been pushed back to August 31st.
If all of those flights start as scheduled on the 31st it's going to be a helluva day for SOU.

[adfly]

More changes...

Few push backs for start dates have appeared in the past few days/weeks.

Eastern to Dublin now starts on the 28th Aug, still down as 6 weekly for the remainder of the summer season.

Bigger change is that Blue Islands are now only re-starting Guernsey on 1st Sept. The base and Manchester/Dublin routes have been pushed back to 26th October. However Manchester will now operate 12 weekly from then (2x Mon-Fri, 1x Sat/Sun) and Dublin remains 4 weekly. I expect this will give them a better chance on Manchester, as their previous schedule was not particularly useful for business travel or connections.

Update: Forgot to add that Aurigny are now not returning to a full schedule until 24/09. This has attracted a fair amount of criticism from a number of islanders as it has made it very awkward for any students starting uni to get to their place in time.

[TCAS FAN]

Anyone able to provide an update on the tree work at Marhill Copse?

[SKOJB]

Originally Posted by TCAS FAN

Anyone able to provide an update on the tree work at Marhill Copse?

Work to fell the four trees granted by SCC was supposed to be happening some weeks ago, maybe someone can confirm if these were removed?

[RW20]

Unless there is a positive outcome from the Runway application,I believe that the airport is going to struggle in the short term. The value of having a decent paved surface is illustrated in the way BOURNEMOUTH have been able to operate at there pre covid operational hours. Southampton has however been open to date to 19-00,and a rather surprising 15-00 on Saturdays. Clearly SOU needs the extension to survive,however this is no way certain, challenging times is ahead,I'm sure certain contributors to this blog will denounce me and have a rather haloed view of Southampton prospects,but reality dictates that if it's not viable,then it won't survive .

[The Nutts Mutts]

Just seen on FB that the runway consultation closing date has been extended again to August 31st, but can't find this anywhere online apart from one person's FB comment.
Does anyone know what the story is?

EDIT: Just seen the closing date of 31st August on the Eastleigh planning site. Has this changed recently? Does anyone know why?

[adfly]

KLM now bookable for this coming Winter 20/21 season. Still a single daily flight but aircraft type has been upgraded to an E190.

[Dropoffcharge]

Originally Posted by RW20

Unless there is a positive outcome from the Runway application,I believe that the airport is going to struggle in the short term. The value of having a decent paved surface is illustrated in the way BOURNEMOUTH have been able to operate at there pre covid operational hours. Southampton has however been open to date to 19-00,and a rather surprising 15-00 on Saturdays. Clearly SOU needs the extension to survive,however this is no way certain, challenging times is ahead,I'm sure certain contributors to this blog will denounce me and have a rather haloed view of Southampton prospects,but reality dictates that if it's not viable,then it won't survive .

I have to agree with the above, reality time hitting hard, it seems is going to be very tough times ahead for SOU, really not sure what is out there to kick start the place again during this current climate? With vastly reduced regional flying on the cards, by a reduction in regional carriers and with cargo probably not an option like BOH seems to be pursuing, how long can the channel islands and a few select routes keep the place going? The extension is a must now, but who is going to be genuinely ready to take advantage of that? (if it happens at all) I'm certain Easyjet won't be banging on the door to open up a new base like some think they will, as they seem to be, as most airlines are, consolidating not expanding right now.

[bad bear]

I don’t think the South of England “ needs” Southampton’s runway extended, the owners might think it will increase their profits but that’s a different argument. If Southampton is a small regional airport for the next 30 years it will survive just fine. If the runway is extended to be “ just long enough” to get larger jets in there will be a greater risk of an over run accident on to the motorway. Best stick with the runway they have .

[Wycombe]

At the moment SOU's daily scheduled movements are about 25% of what they were before Flybe's demise. I'd imagine that's not sustainable as a level of business on many levels.

The extension will enable existing operators to operate in a more commercially beneficial way and will enable operators of larger types (which can use the airport today but in a quite restricted way) more flexibility (ie, to fly further with greater loads).

It needs to happen.

[Rivet Joint]

Weather

Isn’t the weather lovely at the moment? You would have to be a truly sad individual to feel the need to post negative rubbish right now. It’s not like SOU has all three of the country’s regional airlines climbing over each other to open routes and KLM are back with a bigger plane, all whilst the aviation industry is seriously suffering at the moment I might add. Meanwhile at BOH, it’s being used as an aircraft graveyard which I guess is quite fitting (N.B this is not intended to open the tiresome debate on SOU v BOH so don’t even go there). My comment is merely intended to highlight that when you look at the facts, there is clearly a lot of value placed on SOU by the aviation industry, and that more will be forthcoming when its operational abilities are improved.