Flybe Sun Routes
 

Finally they appear to be bookable!

Alicante - Daily
Malaga - Daily
Faro - 6 weekly (Mon-Sat)
Palma - 6 weekly (No Thurs)
La Rochelle - 4 weekly (Tue/Thurs/Sat/Sun)
Brest - 4 weekly (Tue/Thurs/Sat/Sun) - Only appears to operate over the summer holidays.

Bastia (New!) - 2 weekly (Thurs/Sun)
Milan (New!) - 3 weekly (Weds/Sat/Sun) - Seems like an unusual schedule?

Nice appears to have been dropped (though has been half replaced by BOH - Toulon) and Clermont-Ferrand is also gone.

The Spanish/Portuguese routes along with Bastia are operated by E195's, the rest are on Q400's.

When do the Milan flights start from?

16th May 2015

Milan
 

Awful return flight time, arr SOU 2230! Could they not get a better slot than that? And why are they showing as 4 seats left on a date in June, no way have 70 odd seats sold since the route was announced. A cynical ploy no doubt by flybe to make you hurry up and book before the price, supposedly increases?

.....or of course there could be a block booking for a tour operator (which may be the main reason for the route being started), with just a few seats left to sell to others. I think the SOU-VRN route originally started as a charter (presumably for similar reasons) before becoming a scheduled route.

The above is purely conjecture on my part.

On the wider subject of the "sun routes", adfly's info above suggests 28 rotations per week on the 195, which sounds like just about enough to keep 2 airframes going?

The '4 seats left' caption refers to seats being available at that price. As soon as they have been sold the price will increase and that caption will only appear again once 4 seats remain unsold at the new price and so on.

4 seats left
 

So the statement '4 seats left' is clearly a cynical and dishonest lie then. It should read '4 seats left at this price'

Isnt it ironic how people slag off Ryanair for their misleading info on their website but at least they state 'x seats left at this fare'

Trading standards anyone?

andy - I think Trading Standards with their limited staff and budgets have bigger things to spend their time on than this. Flybe are a commercial company and in visiting their website, you should expect strong encouragement to buy their products.

As with any matter in law where you feel someone else is breaking the law, you are of course welcome to initiate a private prosecution through the courts at your own cost if you feel strongly over this.

Wycombe - I expect so, EXT has 14 flight per week on 1 E195, though most likely there could be a rotation to DUB/AMS in between if there is room in the schedules like in previous years. I wonder if SOU will ever see any of the E175's permanently based ( I am aware there is one based as we speak) to operate the most popular domestic and European routes?

So how would you feel if you hurriedly booked a flight because it was showing 4 seats left, only to check the website a few days later to see that not only were there 'another' 4 seats left, but that the price may have gone down?

It's misleading at best, dishonest at worst and one of the reasons why in the last couple of years and in the future Flybe will not get a penny from me.

So they are very quick to blame the runway length for a lack of choice of destinations. I've just read an article on Skiathos airport which has a runway that is approx 300ft shorter than SOU. Perhaps it's time to stop blaming the runway and sort out the stands to accommodate the types of aircraft that could offer a much better choice of destinations. It even states that a 767-200 was used on a flight from Milan. Imagine seeing one of those coming in over the M27

Skiathos this doesn't have a hill at the end of the runway which has an effect on aircraft performance and load factors.

Hampshireandy - seriously?? Have you never used a low cost airline before? Their websites tend to be much the same.

Any if there are 4 seats at a particular price, you take them, the price will go up to the next fare class available - not down. So your theory doesn't apply.

Get over it, have a drink. Now is not the season to be getting stressed over airline websites 🎄

Wrong. That is exactly what happened to me last year with a market leading loco airline.

Only 7 seats left at this price (£22.49). Seven days later, only 7 seats left at this price (£15.49). So the price can actually come down.

Cloud1 it sounds like youre the one who has never flown low-cost, and are you seriously calling Flybe a low cost airline?! They are the worst of both worlds, neither low cost or full service. As i stated in my post even Ryanair has a fundamental and clear difference in their 'number of seats left' policy.

Austrian appear to have used A319's on one/some of the INN charters, hopefully that is an indication the route is proving popular, I believe it is usually flown by F100's. Since there is so little happening (which could be seen as good & bad) at SOU I thought this would be worth posting!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/b752/16184491631
Credit to 'B752' for the photo.

TSR2 - sometimes if a booking is cancelled the fares will automatically be released for sale. So if someone booked the £15 tickets and then cancelled they would go back out for sale at that price unless it's on the day if departure (IE no show) It doesn't happen too often when you compare it to the number of bookings made online each day but explains why occasionally it may occur.

I should have covered this in small print - doesn't happen often that's why I omitted it. However it's not an intentional ploy to deceive customers as hampshireandy was suggesting with the wording of his post.

Hampshireandy - if Flybe are that bad why book a flight with them?

Good news on the A319 gives a bit of variety again for the ramp staff

I live near Southampton Airport and have notized the absence of the Flybe Embraer jets as they usually fly over my garden.Have they left Southampton Airport?

SOU passengers 2014
 

anne747380 - I suspect they have been moved elsewhere/into storage while ALC/AGP take their mid winter break as in previous years. As soon as they restart (some when in Feb I believe) I'd expect them to return.

According to the CAA provisional stats SOU handled 1,829,685 passengers in 2014, which is a healthy 6.2% increase on 2013 and the highest since 2007, although 2005-2007 saw higher numbers. So all in all SOU has been pretty static in terms of passenger numbers in the last 10 or so years, incidentally the master plan put together in 2003 said they expected 3 million passengers per year by 2015! While I can't see that happening any time soon if Flybe remain committed to its base and *somebody* operates the sun routes after the E195's leave I expect SOU could pass the 2 million mark in the next couple of years.

Monthly passengers were up by an impressive 14.5% compared to last December.

BM
 

I think it would create a great opportunity for British Midland Regional to set up a base at Southampton especially as they are working closely with Lufthansa and code sharing on several German routes mainly from Munich.

British Midland are on expansion mode at present and have the suitable aircraft in the EMB 135 for ex SOU. Although not a member of Star Alliance British Midland Regional could offer great connections from Southampton to the following hubs such as

Brussels
Copenhagen
Frankfurt
Munich
Zurich

I can't see Flybe serving such markets having tried and failed previously but surely there is local demand for such routes.

The new owners of SOU should be able to secure at least a few of these destinations and possible new airlines as long as they sort out the current apron stand situation.

Other options could be the return of

Vueling to BCN and possibly other Spanish destinations
Aer Lingus Regional to ORK
Air France to Paris CDG
KLM to AMS

And maybe

Air Nostrum 'Iberia Regional' to MAD