I hope this attempt from lolofligths does actually go ahead. '100 seat E195' is either poor journalism (as per from the echo...) or possibly a suggestion it will be restricted to 100 seats for runway performance reasons?

Skiathos is an interesting destination so it would be great to see it succeed.

How many E195's will Flybe still have once the 3 disappear mid year next to Stobart? and are the 2 that are at Southend now being returned to mainstream Flybe? Lots of chartering going on from SOU for next summer what with Menorca and now Skiathos and makes you wonder where all the frames are coming from

E195s
 

Flybe currently have 9x E195s, with the 3x going to Stobart Air that leaves the company with 6x next summer. A further 4x will leave the fleet during 2019 according to their annual investors report.

Change in management may change that disposal.

The "sun" routes have been reinstated.

Pretty sure I read already that the MAH charter will be on the Dash from SOU.

They'll have 6 left by next summer. 2 based in Cardiff 1 in Doncaster 1 in Exeter 1 for NQY-LGW and 1 spare.
They do have 4 E175 arriving in 2019.

blimey last time i did props to the Balearics was when i was with BMA
we did LPL-PMI and BHX-MAH with a Viscount in the late 70's early 80's

both on a Friday night pleasurably 4h.45m sojourn enjoying a hot dinner :ok:

best of luck with this
lolo flights tried BOH and MAN but the BOH did not sell and was canned - not sure how MAN went

Did the Flybe Q400 to PMI in September. Lovely flight

So far as I know, the flights (from BOH to Santorini) were never actually on sale, Mrs FlightFone tried to book on-line and with several travel agents, several times. It was never possible to buy tickets. Fly LoLo did not get the basics right. FF

Seems both MAN and BOH flights were cancelled citing low sales 2 months before they were due to start according to some press articles, few topics on trip advisor about it and people having their flights cancelled and then having to pay a lot more to rebook with others, this seems to be attempt no.2

Fly lolo having another go at MAN, GLA and LGW to TFS and ACE this winter, but on very random dates in December using Air Europa.

Flybe have changed the Palma service operating on a Tuesday afternoon from next July to operate to Skiathos instead , hence the mystery is solved as of where the aircraft is coming from to operate this new route

Flybe will now operate just 3 times a week to Palma from next July and Volotea at the moment will operate 2 times a week on behalf of TUI

Still no confirmation from Volotea of either Palma or Ibiza on their website, is this because they are not flying scheduled services next year and instead only charters via TUI?

It would be a real shame if Volotea are not operating scheduled flights from SOU in 2018 and only flying charter flights on behalf of TUI.

With the huge and quite wealthy catchment area of SOU the airport shouldn't have to be in this position every year regarding flights being continued if anything it should be quite the opposite with the airport announcing new airlines and new routes.

In the long term the only hope for SOU is if EasyJet make any considerations into expanding from the airport as the large catchment would easily welcome any move by the airline with passengers having a committed airline to the routes that they want to fly to.

As I said in post #73 .... Just received this from Volotea ....

Yes, we should fly from Southampton next summer. Generally flights are scheduled approximately 6/7 months in advance. Best regards, Bruno

In all fairness a lot of airlines or companies for that matter make statements like that all the time but none of us will actually know until the schedules are finally released which I would have thought they would have been by now hence my post.

I am a bit cynical and I never believe to much until it's actually official but hopefully Volotea will announce something soon so that your reply from them can be justified.

Southampton could be so much better with investment!, unfortunately this hasn't happened,and not likely to happen in the near future!
Really is the airport going to survive longtime? It's debateble!
One debateable matter why did the Faro flight divert today to Hurn?
The wind was gusting to 40 knots at Both airports and at 230 degrees direction should have been manageable for a 20 landing?

Crew reported windsheer on approach.

BBC reported today that TUI will be operating flights to Menorca from May until September 2018.
South Live: Tuesday 24 October - BBC News

KelvinD

Menorca from Southampton with TUI and flights to be operated by Flybe Dash 8 were announced a few weeks ago and has only probably been recently picked up by news outlets such as the link you provided.

See post 23.

Does anyone know where you can find a list of what aircraft can operate out of SOU? I am particularly curious about the CRJ. I know AF used CRJ-200s into SOU but I wondered if the larger versions can operate.

Ref post #22

Rivet Joint or anyone, Autumn has almost been and gone what news on the announcement from the airport operator?

TCAS FAN
The longer in time there is no announcement ,the more sceptical I am on it being of any significance, especially any airside development.Surely this is the time for Airport to move forward with investment,or does it stagger on and lose the opportunities that are waiting as London airports reach saturation.

I am also in anticipation of that so called announcement from the management at Southampton Airport that was first mentioned in post 22!

Yes that shouldn't be a problem. It's normally the wet landing distance for the larger CRJs that's the limiting factor on short runways due to their high landing speeds but as SOU has a grooved runway that wouldn't normally affect operations.

Thanks Expressflight. There are a few CRJ operators around Europe that could look to serve the odd route at SOU. I suspect that the CRJ-900 might be too much for the runway though.

In terms of the expansion, it is starting to look like it is a case of mr bigmouth strikes again. Certainly It cannot have anything to do with EZY as it's cutting it fine now before they start operating. Wouldn't it have been a great show of enthusiasm to announce some significant airside investment at the time of EZY's testing of the water. Show EZY that SOU will invest if they do. Red funnel are also owned by pension funds and have recently announced a string of multi million pound investments. The current pension funds have bought in recently as well, a bit like the ones that own SOU. Not sure why SOU for nearly a decade has stood still. Is it the fact they have no competition in BOH? Is it the fact that for that decade the same man has been MD? I'm interested to know what other people's thoughts are. The only small piece of hope is that SOU have been employing lots of management roles lately, which could point to a large project being on the horizon. Saying that, most these big operations have managers that are in charge of departments that do not seem to undertake any actual work.

Even the CRJ-900 should be OK at SOU. It's grooved runway should mean that WET WET WET is rarely declared and it is only in those conditions that the CRJ-900 LDR could exceed the SOU LDA.

Expressflight..
No wish for a debate & to recognize you are better informed than most when it comes to R/W performance.
However your last post I regard as simplistic by stating WET WET WET with grooved runway operations is rarely declared.
Other factors are surely in play?.

Expressflight..
As an example STN has a grooved R/W but regularly declares WET WET WET in precipitation.

That's interesting as I have always thought that a grooved runway was rarely declared as being WWW and that was one of the main benefits of grooving. Perhaps someone at SOU can say what the situation is there.

I've never known LCY to suffer diversions away due to being declared WWW and I would have thought that airport might be rather critical to some aircraft types in that respect.

Sorry for the thread drift and not wishing to prolong this discussion more than necessary.

Also not wishing to prolong this discussion for too long but I guess it is apposite to the SOU situation. The old SEN runway had a friction course overlaying the mainbase following an aquaplaning situation. The new extended runway is not grooved to my knowledge although surfaced with the latest top course. Air traffic always advise incoming the runway is Damp Damp Damp or Wet Wet Wet.
I would have thought it would be good to offer that information anyway regardless of runway length or width.

Expressflight

Although Southampton has a grooved runway the runway conditions are reported on ATIS
in wet conditions,and regularly stated as wet wet wet!.
Also I believe that the runway is due for resurfacing very soon.

Having done a little research it seems the deciding factor regarding the LDR on a declared WET WET WET grooved runway is what the airline's SOPs say on the subject. Some (perhaps most?) allow grooved runways in that condition to be treated as DRY. Presumably the manufacturer's Performance manual is the source of that permission being carried over into SOPs.

Nice to have learnt something on here today.

Aug CAA Stats
 

Took a while, but they have finally appeared. 224,822 passengers handled, up 3% on last year. Some route breakdowns below:

Alicante - 118 pax / 100% (Not sure if I have the days of operation correct for this? Based on no Thurs/Sat flights)
Bastia - 59 pax / 76%
Cork - 62 pax / 86%
Dusseldorf - 48 pax / 61%
Faro - 107 pax / 90%
Ibiza - 114 pax / 91%
Malaga - 111 pax / 94%
Munich - 19 pax / 38% (Based on 12 weekly and all E145, not sure if either was the case!?)
Paris CDG - 59 pax / 76%
Perpignan - 66 pax / 84%
Rodez - 33 pax / 66% (It improved in the end!)
Verona - 68 pax / 88%

Data from: https://www.caa.co.uk/Data-and-analy...-data-2017-08/

Southampton Airport have announced via their Twitter page that they have launched a Beer of the Month campaign in partnership with Bowman Ales.

We've all been waiting for the BIG announcement... maybe this was it?

PS Adfly, I think BMI were 7 weekly to Munich in July and August.

Expressflight & southside bobby

On the contrary, unless anything has recently changed, WET/WET/WET is frequently reported. The runway is not cambered, it has a crossfall with drains on the east side. These do not have ever worked as they should with water often sitting in the grooves, having nowhere to drain to. Added to this was an annoying practice by Airside Ops of a damp runway (ie matt appearance) being reported WET/WET/WET due to water being thrown up by the inspecting vehicle and splashing under the wheel arches. Lost many Air Europa B738 arrivals due to this as they often were too heavy to land on a wet runway. Happy days!

The Nutts Mutts

.......or maybe follow BOH management's announcement many years ago of a new ATM outside the Terminal Building!

Looks like Southampton has been removed completely from the booking engine of Volotea no mention anywhere of it now

Doesn't look good admittedly. That will be a large reduction for the airport in summer sun capacity to the Med! Any other plans afoot?