At $27 for a barrel of crude, it is likely that demand for anything North Sea related will be non existent

There was an Aurigny flight from Gatwick that landed at 21.45 tonight, flight number GR611

Any idea what this was about?

Looks as if flights have been combined - the ATR doing LGW-GCI but calling at SOU to collect pax booked on GR659 SOU-GCI. Maybe an a/c is u/s - but in any case loads will be incredibly light. GR658 GCI-SOU must have been cancelled.

Thanks for the quick response.

I see that the flight is over two hours behind schedule. It was originally scheduled to arrive at 19.15 with a departure time of 19.45.

The flight number is now GR659.

Looks like Dublin is back to twice daily on a 145 - right back to where the route started in the 90's.

It's been suggested that the inbound GR607 from LGW had a suspected Coronavirus case (believed to be false), passengers from that flight held at Guernsey airport and presumably aircraft deemed as unserviceable to go out again so the SOU aircraft did a combined run instead but left GCI late on the outbound.

Looks like only 3 scheduled flights due in and out of SOU today - one each to JER (BCI) , GCI and ACI (AUR)

Sadly the Alderney literary Festival this weekend Fri-Sun had to be canx'd.
Lots of folk were booked on flights

How do you know this? Nothing has been confirmed by Eastern, just their intent to operate it.

S20 Summary (eventually...)
 

Whilst circumstances are rather different to any other year, I've put together a summary of what will hopefully be operating from SOU this summer once the world starts to return to normality (I am cautiously optimistic that the UK will be in a fairly reasonable place by this time, but lets be honest no-one truly knows...) Please keep any Coronavirus discussions/arguments/doom mongering relating to this for elsewhere, and as ever, let me know of any changes or corrections.

I've based this all on week commencing 13/07.

Aurigny

Alderney - 14 weekly D28
Guernsey - 14 weekly AT7

Blue Islands

Guernsey - 29 weekly AT7/AT4
Jersey - 23 weekly AT7

Eastern Airways (1x ATR72 and 1x E145 based)

Aberdeen - 4 weekly J41 (via MME)
Belfast City - 7 weekly AT7
Dublin - tbc
Leeds Bradford - 15 weekly J41
Manchester - 17 weekly AT7
Newcastle - 11 weekly ER4
Teesside - 10 weekly J41

Loganair (1x ATR72 overnights)

Aberdeen - 4 weekly ER3 (via NCL)
Edinburgh - 26 weekly AT7
Glasgow - 25 weekly AT7
Newcastle - 18 weekly ER3

TUI

Palma - 1 weekly 712 (Volotea)

Summary

210 weekly departures (~340 in S19)
30 daily departures (~49 in S19)

There were around 230 weekly Flybe departures in S19, not including the Blue Islands and Eastern franchises.

Overall I would say this is a solid start for the airport - considering the Dublin flights have not yet been confirmed, and the two other major international routes (Amsterdam and Paris) remain un-served for the time being, plus the general reduction in capacity on existing routes is probably no bad thing looking at where the economy is heading. Even the Newcastle route, despite having more flights has a little less capacity than Flybe provided (I think!), thanks to the smaller aircraft being used.

Thanks Adfly, comprehensive as ever. Looks ok when you consider the airport has had 95% of its route network taken away. The big question will be how long it’s takes to eventually get over current circumstances and we might be in to winter 20/21 before any form of recovery happens. The other issue is ticket sales for the new airlines now operating, will they be known to punters and are they going to be marketed widely, especially within the business community? Fair to say we will see further increase on Belfast and maybe Manchester at some stage, along with the yet to be announced Dublin schedule. The 2 other core routes are Paris and Amsterdam, of which combined contribute circa 300k to pax numbers annually although I cannot see these being reintroduced until the virus subsides, it will however be interesting to see who takes these on. French regionals are gone for the time being and med routes minimal apart from TUI Palma. Any further route reintroduction/growth will come about from the airports success of the runway planning app, of which I am quietly confident will get the go ahead from EBC. All in all I think the airport have done well in getting this far post BE and have been unfortunate with the immediate downturn caused by COVID 19!

I think SOU has a core of regular business users (I am a reasonably regular one) and they will be following the airports updates about returning routes, and that core of loyal use will return to some extent.

I think it's sensible that the replacement operators are coming in with a lot less capacity than Flybe had on the core routes taken up so far (although both EZE and LOG on NCL looks a bit questionable), and once we overcome the virus they will start to be taken up.

Ironically I was due to fly with Flybe to BHD tomorrow (booked about 2 weeks before they folded) but first the Customer asked us not to go (due coronovirus concerns) and I ended up cancelling my reservations on the day they went into administration :sad:

Eastern Airways suspending all flights from Southampton base,

https://www.easternairways.com/annou...us-information

Not sure what the active is today but I haven't seen or heard a single aircraft on final for 20 all day.

Absolutely, it's earily quiet over the skies of Southampton today, even the bird's seem rather quiet compared to normal.

I wonder how many staff are on duty at SOU today!

Not many. I thought the exact same thing as you about the birds when I was in my garden earlier. The World has got the sound turned down.

Exactly I love to see and hear the plane's but when the bird's are quiet it makes things rather strange, not a nice feeling!

My excuses for a potentially stupid question from a distance - but why is there, based on the allocation of capacity by the C.I.'s home carriers, apparently much more demand at SOU from/to the "smaller" Guernsey than from/to the "bigger" Jersey, whereas from the London airports it appears to be the other way round?

There are about 10 each scheduled arrivals and departures due today. A few of them have definitely happened as I saw (on FR24) an Eastern Saab landing from BHD about an hour ago (1340). The news above suggests that today will be the last day of EZE ops in and out of SOU for a while though.

AUR launched in competition with BCI out of GCI last year, with very low prices which actually stimulated a lot of additional demand. I thought it might cease once they got rid of the ATR42 (G-HUET) which they used for most of these flights, but it has carried on, using the ATR72's (3 of which are brand new).

Until now of course. Although at the moment they are operating the only (1 daily) service between the island and SOU.

Pi$$ing contest between the two carriers - The yellow one has a blank cheque book as its owned by the 'States' ie Govt, so doesn't really care, the other one I can't, unfortunately, see surviving much past the end of the week...