Perhaps someone decided to put the positioning flights on sale and see how many people were interested ? If by March ticket sales are terrible, then could we perhaps expect to see passengers being told flights are cancelled and aircraft reposition empty ?

Word on LDY/EGAE Derry Londonderry forum is that Flybe are in running for Derry-London PSO route and some other Derry to UK Mainland services.

Anyone on here with connections able to confirm this?

http://www.pprune.org/airlines-airpo...ml#post9624115

Not had a comprehensive look yet, but looks like 2 daily BHX-NQY on Saturdays during high season. Same for BHD.

Those Saturday afternoon EMA and EXT to SOU and evening returns are a bit of an odd one.

Also looks like SOU-ABZ direct flights on Sat and Sun during the Summer. Timings suggest these are also to get another aircraft in to operate from SOU.

Med. routes from SOU (esp. PMI, 1 a week) looks to be significantly reduced as expected (Volotea will be operating up to 4x weekly I believe on PMI though).

flybe sat flights to sou . I wonder if sat is a big cruise change over day in Southampton.

EXT - NWI has dropped to 4x weekly Summer 17; however the flight times clash with NWI - AGP/ALC so a second based E195 at either EXT or NWI seems likely?

EXT - RNS now 2x weekly, with an additional rotation on Sunday morning added to complement the previous years Saturday only service.

EXT - SOU could be a MUC service, or simply turning revenue from a positioning flight?

Port of Southampton which is northern Europes busiest turn around port that's handles almost two million passengers per annum through its four dedicated Cruise Terminals with upto 500 calls scheduled for 2015 by all the major cruise lines such as Celebrity Cruises, Cunard, Fred Olsen, MSC, P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, Saga Cruises, etc.

Saturday's and Sunday's are the busiest days for cruise ships in Southampton sometimes handling up to 10 large cruise ships spread over the two days with up to 50,000 passengers disembarking and embarking on their cruises.

Saturday's are the main turn around day for the larger ships from P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line.

Currently all the cruise company's have connecting coach services to the Port of Southampton covering most of the country except for the West Country.

Celebrity Cruises and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line already have an arrangement with Flybe covering their domestic flights from SOU and these new flights will be an addition to that.

Both cruise lines have representatives at SOU to meet arriving passengers with a free shuttle coach direct to the ship. Currently Celebrity Cruises and Royal Carribbean Cruise Line have approximately 1000 passengers per Saturday's and Sunday's connecting via SOU with Flybe and want to expand on this during 2017 and 2018 when even larger cruise ships will operate from the port exceeding to over two million passengers per annum.

Your right with those flight times looks most likely they need a NWI based EMB-195, however I suspect AGP/ALC flight times will change so they can operate like the winter schedule and do EXT-ALC-NWI-EXT-NWI-ALC-EXT.

I wouldn't like to be relying on Flybe to get me to Southampton in time to meet my cruise departure

The flight timings are completely unsuitable for cruise. Afternoon arrivals into Southampton are too late for typical 1500 embarkation for a 1700 sailing on the way out. On the way back, most ships dock 0600-0800 and so no one is going to hang around all day for a 2030 flight to Exeter when you could have driven home and probably got all of your holiday laundry under way and picked up the dog from kennels long before then.

Whatever they are doing, it can't be cruise-related. No doubt that SOU is busy with cruise ships on Sat and Sun, and flybe do indeed carry a lot of cruise folk on their flights, but very much earlier in the day and not this!

When things go wrong it's always more newsworthy, and I'm not saying they never do, but I've taken 6 flights with BEE in the last year, and all on time or early.

Re. cruise departures, the roads and rails can ruin your day aswell. I departed Southampton on a 17-dayer in July last year, and a party of 6 were left behind after getting stuck in traffic. They were standing on the quayside when we arrived at our first stop (Palma) 3 days later!

Flybe was the most punctual airline in the UK last year so it can't be that bad. I think the issue is when you have 550 departures even a 1% issue is 6 aeroplanes worth of disruption whereas an airline with only 100 departures in a day will see 1 aeroplane's worth of disruption. Blinded by statistics? Maybe, but it's still factual.

Vinnym: You have hit the nail on the head there :D I remember being at the airport all day once waiting for a flight to DUB. During that day the flight was on and off 4 times and the closest I got to DUB was a guinness in the terminal before going home. Yes this happens to every airline but it definitely happens to BE more than any other airline I can think of. I thought the lunacy would have ended after the last MD left, but clearly its here to stay. ABZ-SOU only at the weekend? Not much oil business done on weekends as far as I know. EMA and EXT to SOU is about as bizarre as it gets though, and I cannot see them being positioning flights as SOU has a sizable base already. The 195 operates in from MAN to operate the sun routes (what little are left!) They are much better being used on routes like CWF/EMA-JER :eek: (on huge subsidies!) Is that not right Mr Hammad? :ok:

Where is CWF you sad little former disgruntled employee?

It's better to ignore him.

ABZ
 

The reason there is an ABZ-SOU only on the weekend is that if you can escape that grim, soulless, culturally destitute spunk bucket of town after a weeks work, you can do.

Its a mercy flight.

I am forced to consider which of these two fine cities is the grimmer, more soulless, and more culturally destitute. You take your pick. At least ABZ gives access to the great hillwalking of the eastern Grampians.

Oh I don't know, Southampton's not that bad......................

most punctual? is that because they just cancel? Only airline ive recurrently had flights cancelled with in the past.

Well VickersViscount, with 550 departures every day x 364 (you do the maths) I'd say you are extremely unlucky. How do you quantify "flights"? Two? Ten? Fifty? If it was that regular Flybe wouldn't be operating.

Flybe will codeshare with VS on its new ABZ and EDI to LHR services:

https://buyingbusinesstravel.com/new...codeshare-deal