Southampton-3
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Southampton will always struggle to a certain extent until there is a comprehensive and sustained media blitz in the local region - posters at all local railway stations, bus side advertising/bus wraps, taxi wraps, prominent billboards in the area, radio advertising and sponsorship to make people aware of the possibilities.
When BA City Flyer began flying from SOU, none of my immediate neighbours or any of my friends or family were aware of the new routes, and equally it's the same with the new EasyJet routes. Only a couple of weeks ago I mentioned to my next door neighbours that they could fly from SOU for their upcoming ski break - they had absolutely no idea they could fly with EasyJet from Southampton - they've now booked.
A bit of social media and the odd press-release to the Daily Echo or BBC South is not going to have the reach necessary to build awareness. Southampton Airport needs to spend very, very heavily to generate interest - speculate to accumulate!
When BA City Flyer began flying from SOU, none of my immediate neighbours or any of my friends or family were aware of the new routes, and equally it's the same with the new EasyJet routes. Only a couple of weeks ago I mentioned to my next door neighbours that they could fly from SOU for their upcoming ski break - they had absolutely no idea they could fly with EasyJet from Southampton - they've now booked.
A bit of social media and the odd press-release to the Daily Echo or BBC South is not going to have the reach necessary to build awareness. Southampton Airport needs to spend very, very heavily to generate interest - speculate to accumulate!
Join Date: Nov 2015
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Good advice,but it hasn't happened yet!
BA cityflyer should have flourished ,but have almost finished,getting the word out is essential for development at SOU.
Theses a lot of potential ,but it needs promoting !
BA cityflyer should have flourished ,but have almost finished,getting the word out is essential for development at SOU.
Theses a lot of potential ,but it needs promoting !
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Rivet Joint - what a load of utter nonsense.
I have to presume that my earlier comments about Port of Southampton are those you’re referring to. There are indeed lots of days, especially on summer weekends, when there are four or five vessels on turnaround and throughput of 10-20k passengers. There are lots of other days when there are no port turnarounds scheduled. It’s a very “lumpy”
demand pattern to fit air services and if you had done any research before spouting off, you’d see it for yourself.
As to Flybe and Loganair: well, Flybe went bust (twice) for a reason. Loganair is still here after however many decades it is. It was not good for Southampton to have 90% of its business with one airline and the airport is now far better placed with a mix of airlines including Aer Lingus, KLM, Loganair, Blue Islands and Aurigny. Although smaller and still needing to grow, the airport is far more robust as a result.
Loganair presumably do not want to repeat the mistakes that Flybe made and who can blame them. If you don’t like it, that’s fine but comments about slot sitting are also nonsense - how can you “slot sit” at airports which are not slot coordinated?
I have to presume that my earlier comments about Port of Southampton are those you’re referring to. There are indeed lots of days, especially on summer weekends, when there are four or five vessels on turnaround and throughput of 10-20k passengers. There are lots of other days when there are no port turnarounds scheduled. It’s a very “lumpy”
demand pattern to fit air services and if you had done any research before spouting off, you’d see it for yourself.
As to Flybe and Loganair: well, Flybe went bust (twice) for a reason. Loganair is still here after however many decades it is. It was not good for Southampton to have 90% of its business with one airline and the airport is now far better placed with a mix of airlines including Aer Lingus, KLM, Loganair, Blue Islands and Aurigny. Although smaller and still needing to grow, the airport is far more robust as a result.
Loganair presumably do not want to repeat the mistakes that Flybe made and who can blame them. If you don’t like it, that’s fine but comments about slot sitting are also nonsense - how can you “slot sit” at airports which are not slot coordinated?
It’s very lazy to say oh BE went bankrupt because the routes they served were no good. For a start they were around for 18 years as BE which isn’t bad and the real reasons for their demise are well documented. As per usual bad management. Started with the unwise decision to get the jungle jets and move away from their usp (q400), some ridiculous bases at unfashionable airports, the skirmish into Scotland to compete on pointless island hopping flights and the cherry on top hiring one of the worse individuals in business who has gone on to ruin a number of other airlines (COW). The routes from the likes of SOU, BHX, BHD etc were just fine.
In respect of Logan yes it’s great they have been around as long as they have and I hope they keep going but how are they any different than any other airline at SOU with a monopoly? Do they have much competition on most their routes? Is there another big regional player? Yes BE having a monopoly had its downsides but that’s when SOU wasn’t an option for much else with the shorter runway. Now it is and we have people moaning about EZY picking up some routes served by existing operators. Which is it, bad that SOUs routes have no competition and creating a monopoly or bad that EZY are coming in to provide competition?
The slot sitting comment was obviously said in jest but in reality it’s essentially what they are doing. We know SOU is not sustainable with the status quo, Logan are not making any effort to change that be it with bigger aircraft etc, so yes they are effectively just serving the routes with little gamble on their part.
So they literally cannot survive without growth into LCC or they'd need to cut costs for a changed world? If the offering was only Loganair and Aer Lingus ATRs, channel islands and KLM they'd have to close? Are they servicing a high debt pile?
I thought the breakeven point for an airport in the UK to earn the cost of capital (no, not just £1 in annual profit) is about 1 million pax per year. Interest rates are no longer (almost) zero, so the cost of equity capital has increased since 2021. Let's assume 1m per year is an exaggeration by somebody and it's actually just 750k. How would SOU reliably and consistently hit this sort of number without significant LCC input ? There's no obvious sign of Aurigny, Blue Islands, Eastern or Loganair setting up a base at SOU like Flybe pre-Covid. LGW, BOH and even BRS, with their LCC flights, welcome leakage from SOU's catchment area with open arms.
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 5th Dec 2023 at 23:07.
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Sat 1st June 4 16826 Sat 8th June 3 11670
Sun 2nd June 3 9919 Sun 9th June 4 10684
Mon 3rd June 2 6758 Mon 10th June 0 0
Tue 4th June 0 0 Tue 11th June 2 3618
Wed 5th June 0 0 Wed 12th June 0 0
Thu 6th June 2 6056 Thu 13th June 0 0
Fri 7th June 2 6646 Fri 14th June 3 10970
So one Monday, you have two vessel turnrounds with 6,758 pax and on the next Monday you have nothing. On the Tuesday, you have nothing - but the following Tuesday, you've two vessels with 3,618 pax. Saturday - the busiest day - has a 30% difference in capacity.
It's as lumpy as hell and you cannot plan an airline schedule around that. The notion of just doing a few flights a week with big aircraft to service this is a joke - you need frequency if you're going to service the cruise market, particularly as some cruise lines do not operate 7/14 night patterns so a flight on the same day each week might get cruise passengers onto their ship but won't get them home again at the end of the cruise.
Comments just really confirm that you don't know what you're talking about.
Amusing you say that the Flybe routes from BHD and BHX were just fine, but those are many of the same ones that Flybe 2 tried again and went bust again. I'd be surprised if SOU wasn't profitable for Flybe 1, but the airport having 90% of its customer base in the hands of one airline was not good. It now has 30-40% at most in the hands of one operator with a spread of about six or seven airlines accounting for its traffic. Allowing easyJet to squeeze out the smaller operators and returning to a place where one airline accounts for 90% of your throughput is a very dangerous place to go.
You've not just got to look at what proportion of traffic an airline operates at an airport, but what proportion of an airlines operation that airport represents i,e. SOU is more important to Loganair as it's a bigger part of their network than SOU is to EZY, so they are more likely to maintain a long term consistent schedule.
Ideally an airport wants a good mix of airlines and routes serving different sectors of the market. While EZY's presence at SOU is a good thing, the choice of routes isn't necessarily. Given the approach taken by EZY so far if you were a small airline, you would think twice about launching a new route from SOU for fear that EZY would jump on it if it was successful - MAN would seem to be the obvious candidate here.
The problem then is you could end up with losing your smaller players and have flights which are less than ideal in terms of timing and frequency and the possibility that EZY will switch out resources if they can be deployed more profitably elsewhere.
Ideally an airport wants a good mix of airlines and routes serving different sectors of the market. While EZY's presence at SOU is a good thing, the choice of routes isn't necessarily. Given the approach taken by EZY so far if you were a small airline, you would think twice about launching a new route from SOU for fear that EZY would jump on it if it was successful - MAN would seem to be the obvious candidate here.
The problem then is you could end up with losing your smaller players and have flights which are less than ideal in terms of timing and frequency and the possibility that EZY will switch out resources if they can be deployed more profitably elsewhere.
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Just to be clear, I do not object to airline competition in general. My fear is specifically to do with EZY’s track record on domestic routes. There seems very little commitment to them. Just look at the way they have chopped and changed schedules on other domestics. My concern is that EZY presence could cause LM to discontinue the route but that EZY might find a better/different use for the aircraft and also discontinue the route. Not so much a win/win as a lose/lose. I stand by my view that if SOU has given EZY discounts, marketing support or whatever to operate GLA and BFS they are shortsighted and stupid.
"Ideally an airport wants a good mix of airlines and routes serving different sectors of the market"
"An airport" is not a sentient entity - the owners want the maximum profit and minimum investment, the locals minimum noise and maximum jobs, the airlines zero competition, the passengers lots of flights at the lowest cost to everywhere. These all get in the way your aim of good mix...........
"An airport" is not a sentient entity - the owners want the maximum profit and minimum investment, the locals minimum noise and maximum jobs, the airlines zero competition, the passengers lots of flights at the lowest cost to everywhere. These all get in the way your aim of good mix...........
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[QUOTE=Asturias56;11552368]"Ideally an airport wants a good mix of airlines and routes serving different sectors of the market"
"An airport" is not a sentient entity - the owners want the maximum profit and minimum investment, the locals minimum noise and maximum jobs, the airlines zero competition, the passengers lots of flights at the lowest cost to everywhere. These all get in the way your aim of good mix...........[/QUO
Disappointing that Easy flight details announced today do not show any increases in there very limited SOU 2023/24 operations ,considering SEN have increased PMI to 8 a week!
Runway extension yet to give any significant results!
"An airport" is not a sentient entity - the owners want the maximum profit and minimum investment, the locals minimum noise and maximum jobs, the airlines zero competition, the passengers lots of flights at the lowest cost to everywhere. These all get in the way your aim of good mix...........[/QUO
Disappointing that Easy flight details announced today do not show any increases in there very limited SOU 2023/24 operations ,considering SEN have increased PMI to 8 a week!
Runway extension yet to give any significant results!
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[QUOTE=RW20;11553124]
SEN getting PMI x 8 weekly versus SOU x 2 weekly along with 1 each for FAO/ALC is quite frankly a kick in the nether regions for the airport!
"Ideally an airport wants a good mix of airlines and routes serving different sectors of the market"
"An airport" is not a sentient entity - the owners want the maximum profit and minimum investment, the locals minimum noise and maximum jobs, the airlines zero competition, the passengers lots of flights at the lowest cost to everywhere. These all get in the way your aim of good mix...........[/QUO
Disappointing that Easy flight details announced today do not show any increases in there very limited SOU 2023/24 operations ,considering SEN have increased PMI to 8 a week!
Runway extension yet to give any significant results!
"An airport" is not a sentient entity - the owners want the maximum profit and minimum investment, the locals minimum noise and maximum jobs, the airlines zero competition, the passengers lots of flights at the lowest cost to everywhere. These all get in the way your aim of good mix...........[/QUO
Disappointing that Easy flight details announced today do not show any increases in there very limited SOU 2023/24 operations ,considering SEN have increased PMI to 8 a week!
Runway extension yet to give any significant results!
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Not really , bit overdramatised I think as usual , remember it’s their first season at SOU testing the waters, SEN was up and running for years pre Covid
BA Cityflyer
Palma x 1
Alicante x1
Faro x 1
Malaga x 1
Palma on behalf of TUI x 2
Easyjet
Alicante x 1 A319
Faro x1. A320
Palma x 2 A319
Not bad going for a first S24 season , let’s see how it all goes
BA Cityflyer
Palma x 1
Alicante x1
Faro x 1
Malaga x 1
Palma on behalf of TUI x 2
Easyjet
Alicante x 1 A319
Faro x1. A320
Palma x 2 A319
Not bad going for a first S24 season , let’s see how it all goes
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Not really , bit overdramatised I think as usual , remember it’s their first season at SOU testing the waters, SEN was up and running for years pre Covid
BA Cityflyer
Palma x 1
Alicante x1
Faro x 1
Malaga x 1
Palma on behalf of TUI x 2
Easyjet
Alicante x 1 A319
Faro x1. A320
Palma x 2 A319
Not bad going for a first S24 season , let’s see how it all goes
BA Cityflyer
Palma x 1
Alicante x1
Faro x 1
Malaga x 1
Palma on behalf of TUI x 2
Easyjet
Alicante x 1 A319
Faro x1. A320
Palma x 2 A319
Not bad going for a first S24 season , let’s see how it all goes
Join Date: Nov 2015
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Not really , bit overdramatised I think as usual , remember it’s their first season at SOU testing the waters, SEN was up and running for years pre Covid
BA Cityflyer
Palma x 1
Alicante x1
Faro x 1
Malaga x 1
Palma on behalf of TUI x 2
Easyjet
Alicante x 1 A319
Faro x1. A320
Palma x 2 A319
Not bad going for a first S24 season , let’s see how it all goes
BA Cityflyer
Palma x 1
Alicante x1
Faro x 1
Malaga x 1
Palma on behalf of TUI x 2
Easyjet
Alicante x 1 A319
Faro x1. A320
Palma x 2 A319
Not bad going for a first S24 season , let’s see how it all goes
The talk of Barcelona,Frankfurt,Warsaw,and many more was pie in the sky,and as mentioned before another airline to make announcement?
Where did this come from?
As previous post 2521 says ,a lot more to be done!
Join Date: Dec 2022
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Yes ,but after the runway extension we all thought 2024 would be the year SOU returned to something approaching pre covid days,alas very underwhelming .
The talk of Barcelona,Frankfurt,Warsaw,and many more was pie in the sky,and as mentioned before another airline to make announcement?
Where did this come from?
As previous post 2521 says ,a lot more to be done!
The talk of Barcelona,Frankfurt,Warsaw,and many more was pie in the sky,and as mentioned before another airline to make announcement?
Where did this come from?
As previous post 2521 says ,a lot more to be done!
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You didn’t seriously think the airport would be attracting 1.5-2.0m pax in 2024 surely? From the low levels of 200k as a result of BE/Covid, as I have mentioned previously the airport will hit 1m next year and this will likely become incremental over the next few years, adding hopefully the routes you mention above and more. If I remember correct, weren’t you the one who always banged on about the runway extension being more for those incumbent airlines and operating their fleets economically as opposed to the airport being able to attract new business!
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See post #2454, very doable and even more so if MAN comes back on stream. Let’s not forget the traffic to be generated by ezy BFS/GLA alone going to 5/6/7 weekly, granted that depends on load factors but early indications seem to be favourable.
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There's a huge potential for Poland flights,and what about Malta ,virtually every regional airport flies this one!