SOU miss out again on this morning's LGW closure, see two BA A319s inbound BOH, no parking space at SOU?

I was told that the Aurigny Embraer 195 diverted into SOU due to the runway closure at LGW..

not sure that SOU will be too concerned on 'missing out again' on a couple of diverts. I'm sure they are already busy enough with regular traffic and lack of apron space!

It did indeed, positioned to LGW early pm.

This is hilarious :D

Southampton head of operations: "oh no, we are so full of scheduled traffic that we can't be there for some speculative diversions".

I think you will find you have a problem if it's the other way around, ask the guys at BOH.

Diversions
 

Unless I'm mistaken,hasn't Southampton handled BA diversions in recent times?
Surely at the time of the Gatwick /Bournemouth inbounds,there was apron space?
Or is it a management decision?
I can remember a BA 757 diverting into SOU a few years ago,when it could have easily gone to Hurn.

The BA 757 that flew in to SOU on a divert a few years ago was actually on September 11th 2001 and arrived at approx 19.00, it had diverted to SOU from LHR whilst operating a flight from Geneva I believe. I can clearly remember seeing her flying right over my head whilst it was on approach to SOU heading from the south and the date will always stay in my mind for obvious reasons.

In the past we have also had several BA 737 diversions and in the late 70's and early 80's on more than a few occasions SOU had several BA diverts including 1-11's and Viscounts, I can remember being at SOU and seen by myself on one occasion in the early eighties where we actually had 6 BA aircraft on the apron at the same time, four Vickers Viscounts and two Bac 1-11's, although that was long before the new terminal and apron was opened in 1991.

Feb '16 CAA Stats
 

Passengers down 5% in Feb, hopefully they should be on the up from this point. An 8th based Flybe Q400 started around the beginning of this month, plus Aer Lingus Regional have also commenced flights to Cork now. Incidentally bookings for the first couple of weeks look pretty good, with quite a few loads of 45-50+ pax.

Mixed results of the domestic front, although I have noticed Newcastle has had fairly significant month on month increases consistently for a while now, so maybe a 4th daily flight will be added soon if all remains well. I expect Guernsey will decrease when Blue Islands become a Flybe franchise, it is pretty inevitable that some 'consolidation' will happen.

Hamburg averaged about 11 passengers for a 22% load factor, numbers for Antwerp are not shown. Düsseldorf averaged 28 passengers, for a 36% load factor. Either is pretty poor, but given Flybe have kept the route going and VLM has not dropped SOU (cut from 5 to 3 weekly from the summer though) they must be getting reasonable yields and/or onward bookings.

Flybe have started to release their winter schedule as well, with Düsseldorf, Munich and Lyon all operating daily, albeit the latter does so from the start of the ski season in December.

Flybe have begun to release there W16/17 schedule. The following destinations are currently on sale at the frequencies shown. Info based on schedule for 14th to 20th November.

Amsterdam - 32 x weekly (Mon-Fri - 5 x Daily, Sat - 3 Flights, Sun - 4 Flights)
Belfast City - 19 x weekly (Mon-Fri - 3 x Daily, Sat & Sun 2 x Daily)
Bergerac - 3 x weekly (Tue/Fri & Sun - 1 x Daily)
Dublin - 25 x weekly (Mon-Fri - 4 x Daily, Sat - 2 Flights, Sun - 3 Flights)
Dusseldorf - 7 x weekly (1 x Daily)
Edinburgh - 32 x weekly (Mon-Fri - 5 x Daily, Sat - 3 Flights, Sun - 4 Flights)
Glasgow - 31 x weekly (Mon-Fri - 5 x Daily, Sat - 2 Flights, Sun - 4 Flights)
Jersey - 25 x weekly (Mon-Fri - 4 x Daily, Sat - 2 Flights, Sun - 3 Flights)
Lyon - 7 x weekly (1 x Daily)
Manchester - 30 x weekly (Mon-Fri - 5 x Daily, Sat - 2 Flights, Sun - 3 Flights)
Munich - 7 x weekly (1 x Daily)
Nantes - 4 x weekly (Mon/Wed/Fri & Sun)
Newcastle - 18 x weekly (Mon-Fri - 3 x Daily, Sat - 1 Flight, Sun - 2 Flights)
Paris CDG - 7 x weekly (1 x Daily)
Paris Orly - 12 x weekly (Mon-Fri - 2 x Daily, Sat & Sun - Daily)

Further Changes are likely in the weeks and months to come.

BMI Regional look to be continuing Munich over the winter, currently bookable until 16th Jan (can only book up to 10 months in advance). KLM also have Amsterdam on sale over the winter. Both routes appear to be operating 12 weekly, so unchanged from the summer although I wonder if the latter may see a frequency bump in response to Flybe upping Amsterdam to 5 daily for the winter.

As I previously mentioned Aer Lingus have Cork on sale over the winter operating 4 weekly, so they must be quite happy with bookings. Flybe also have Geneva and Chambery on sale from December, both seem 3 weekly for the most part although they have an extra Friday flight for some of the season. Limoges, Rennes and La Rochelle also have some flights over Xmas/New Year again.

It should be a better winter than the one we are at the end of by the look of how things stand currently.

Hi Adfly,

Thank you for the update.
I've just had a look on the KLM website and it doesn't yet show any flights bookable beyond the end of October.

May I also ask where you get your information about projected loads (ie when you posted earlier about decent loads on the EIR Cork flights)? I'd be interested to see that sort of information for myself but it doesn't seem to be readily available in the public domain for fairly obvious reasons. I assume you work in the travel industry and have access to booking system information?
A reply via PM would be welcome if you'd prefer- I can't send them yet as I'm still new here.

KLM does appear to be bookable for the winter, although the timetables may not be up to date yet: https://gyazo.com/839e45f9dfa0d3364fbe6fc5e99253e1

As for Aer Lingus, you can do a group booking for up to 25 people on their website, so I just tried that for a few dates in the first couple of weeks to see how the first flights were doing. Not the most scientific approach, but it gives a vague idea!

Thanks for letting me know! Great news that the three newest airlines are sticking around, hopefully eventually there'll be some others to join them!

Southampton Passenger figures
 

Adfly ,with Southampton still recording a decline in passenger numbers,but many regional airports showing significant increases,is it a fact that Southampton is just not attracting the expected passengers or is the competition just undermining numbers?

I expect it is still feeling the consequences from Flybe's downsized base over the winter compared to previous years. Demand in the South East is not an issue at all, as you can easily see from the increases reported by the London airports where the catchment overlaps. SOU has been at the disadvantage where around 90% of its passengers come courtesy of one airline. While that airline offers a good selection of routes, the airport remains susceptible to any decisions they make, i.e. throwing toys out of the pram due to charges. These sort of moves have a fairly notable affect on passenger numbers.

Of course, the airfield limitations do not help either, as they significantly reduce the number of airlines who would consider SOU as a viable place to operate from. This is why it is good to see all these new carriers at SOU, as each one makes the airport less influenced by a single, dominant airline.

I think adfly has it spot on.

AFAIK SOU is currently an 8 x Q400 Base for Flybe, with one EMB appearing a few days a week to operate Sun routes (which stop again after Easter until June). A few years ago I think there were 6 or 7 x Q400 and 3 x 195's based (the 195's did a lot more than the Sun routes at that time).

The Summer is looking good, but I'd be concerned about over-capacity now on some routes, AMS being the one that springs to mind with KLM starting and Flybe upping frequency.

I have just had my KLM Saturday evening flight from Amsterdam to Southampton cancelled during August. Only booked it last week as well! Re-scheduled for the morning rotation which is acceptable.

£66 inc fees and bags return was cheaper than a Flybe single fare!

The SOU airport timetable for 2016 has been published but it doesn't look particularly accurate. Flybe daily to Munich and only once a week to Lyon for example? Many other errors too...

Looks like Thomson are lining up Ibiza as a new destination in 2017 on a Friday with Palma continuing on a Tuesday and Saturday

It's always surprised me that Ibiza wasn't reinstated sooner as it's obviously a very popular destination and the amount of people that I know personally that go to the island the local demand is definitely there.

I hope that Thomson along with Thomas Cook can add more destinations from SOU in the future, although personally I don't do package holidays.