thanks for the clarification

Welcome back to the forum and very unexpected. We weren't expecting to hear from you again until after the month of November when everything "will become clearer" 😁

You don't seem to realise that if Easy want to fly to SOU the airport cannot stop them. Allowing any operator access (if slots not a problem) is a requirement of the operating licence from the CAA.

I doubt it very much
Jet 2 plan years in advance look at the launch of the LPL base and S25 on sale already
No way are they going to allow 6 months to launch a new base , crew it and promote good sales for the summer

It probably will be EasyJet on a very low scale , test the market and go from there

If BA Cityflyer can’t make Alicante work though I am surprised , load factors in August being 34 % not good for peak season

Guess this coming week things may all become a bit clearer and everyone can breathe a collective sigh of relief …

Not all new operators and routes appear on slot requests. Pegasus have just announced BHX-SAW starting December and I've never seen them listed on BHX slot requests.

So who knows for SOU? I think it could be a very interesting few weeks though as Nov/Dec is prime time for new route announcements for the following year.

Although I personally think the Jet2 brand/product are a good fit for SOU, they announced their new LPL S24 base months ago so I'd be surprised if they now announce S24 routes from SOU at this (for them) late stage. In addition, they only seem to launch 4 aircraft based as a minimum (can SOU accommodate 4 738 at the same time?) and summer season sees them operating virtually 24 hours a day at most bases with some arrivals through the night followed by a wave of early departures. I thought there were night flight restrictions at SOU?

​​​​Very happy to be proved wrong though!

I doubt easyjet will base any aircraft at SOU due to the airports resticted opening hours. We can add that to the list of future planning applications.

I totally agree with you regarding Jet2. There are some on here who don't think like that but just dream.

Regarding BA City Flyer.

If there was more of a comprehensive schedule rather than just a weekly flight I'm sure that the load factors would be far higher. Unless you're planning a week away the operation by BA City Flyer is totally useless for the majority of people including myself.

Alicante is a prime destination and the load factors don't represent the full story. It's the weekly flight and it's expensive, same goes with former and present destinations flown by BA City Flyer from Southampton.

I tend to have three sometimes four days off a week. I enjoy going on short breaks rather than lengthy holidays. In the summer I like to get away at least once a month maybe more for a short break away. Flying out on a Sunday or Monday morning and returning on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening. I can't do that with the likes of BA City Flyer from my local airport.

Because of the lack of service from my local airport I tend to use LGW and LHR. Being a British Airways Executive Club member my choice of airline tends to be British Airways. What annoys me most is that I have to drive past my local airport on the M27 on my way to either LGW or LHR.

​​​The Loganair schedules from SOU are excellent and hopefully they will make an announcement soon regarding MAN-SOU. The same applies to the Aer Lingus Regional (Emerald Airways) schedules to SOU.


I won't use BOH as I eventually stopped using Ryanair in 2015 after getting absolutely fed up with their continuous on-board announcements and their ever increasing baggage fees. My first flight with Ryanair btw was in 1997 and I've flown with them over 100 times since but not any longer.

Can we try to be nice to each other please ? We all have a common interest.

From an airport user point-of-view, it's such a shame that we no longer have the frequency of flights we once had, it was just so convenient - like having a smaller version of London City on my doorstep. It was great being able to just pop-up to Manchester for a half-day's business, Newcastle, Dublin, Glasgow Edinburgh for the day, Dusseldorf for the exhibition centre when my clients were exhibiting there, multiple times daily to Amsterdam, again ideal for exhibitions and conferences. Even to Skiathos on one occasion which was so convenient to visit my Villa in nearby Alonissos!

I don't use the airport much these days, some of the routes are no longer operated, and those that still do are often at inconvenient times or with very limited numbers of flights, precluding useful out and back in day opportunities.

It's not the airport's fault, but the loss of Flybe was such a game-changer. From a business point-of-view, a Blue Islands base of three or four aircraft operating multiple times daily to the main business centres, plus some leisure flying at the weekend is what i would love to see, but I'm not daft and I realise that probably the market has moved on. Business travel is much reduced and those who do still fly have found other, but less convenient options elsewhere and it would be a herculean task to win them back and would need an enormous publicity and advertising push.

I guess the airport will hopefully be able to reinvent itself as a regional low-cost option, but how I long for the days when it was my local 'London City.'

Would it be fair to say that for calendar year 2023, SOU will likely handle between 750,000 and 800,000 passengers ?
If so, that's a hefty and rather disappointing fall from 2017 when it saw over 2 million passengers... the route development team really have got a lot of work to do for SOU to claw its way back

Agreed - despite their many faults, Flybe have left a massive hole in UK regional flying. Emerald have stepped into Belfast and Loganair to a certain extent for Scotland and the north. Still huge gaps though. Not sure Blue Islands are in any state to step out from Jersey but there are very few alternatives now.

Projections are for 800k this year and 1m next so you would expect a certain amount of new routes with EZY etc to take up the slack. As has been gone over many times previous, the airport was so dependant on BE’s fleet of aircraft but now gone, there was nothing left to fill the void. Fortunately the runway extension is now complete and larger stands in place, therefore fingers crossed the airport should begin to claw its way back again to break even (1m-1.2m pa) in the not to distant future!

EasyJet announces flights to ALC and FAO! Hopefully as they drip more announcements we build up a good network of sun routes.

easyJet now on sale with a single weekly service to Faro and a single weekly service to Alicante. I find it odd that the frequency is so low. Are they scared of Ryanair at Bournemouth?

Wow ,all the months of high speculation,and it comes down to two flights!, not as many as Southend!, Bournemouth must be running there hands together with glee!


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I'm so glad that I'm not the type of person who gets over excited. Especially concerning the number of unsubstantiated rumours over the last year regarding easyjet Sun routes at Southampton for summer 2024.

Hopefully, this announcement isn't part of a certain individuals claim in recent months that "everything will become clearer in October/November" 🤔

If that is the case, we'll I'm sure that I'm alone in commenting on the fact that it's a huge disappointment 😞

The only hope is that EasyJet, during the course of the next few days or so, might add, and I'll say it again, might add some more frequencies or at least two other destinations.

But at least it's a start, and it does show that easyJet obviously has some form of ambition for Southampton. Especially with the recent announcement that BFS and GLA to Southampton are going to be year-round and with increased frequencies.

Although it's not a huge increase in passenger traffic, at least Southampton Airport is now in a better position than before. A few months ago, Southampton Airport had one destination flown by EasyJet. Now, it has five.

If indeed easyJet is going to be at Southampton for the long term, then hopefully, there will be further expansion over the course of the next twelve months involving new destinations.

Obviously, Southampton would like to see more sun routes, but there could be plenty of other opportunities. It'll be nice if easyJet might consider a couple of additional destinations for the winter season 2024/25, such as Chambéry, Innsbruck, Lyon, and Salzburg.

If there is no further news from easyJet in the coming days then hopefully, the next announcement for Southampton Airport will be regarding Loganair and a resumption of a service to Manchester.

Another airline and destination I can forsee for Southampton in the near future is Lufthansa from either Frankfurt or Munich.

Lufthansa are planning on further expanding their regional presence in Europe over the next twelve months with their recently announced City Line subsidiary. Lufthansa are intending on using City Line to feed their hubs at Frankfurt and Munich in a similar way that KLM does at Amsterdam.

Over the last two years or so, Lufthansa have added or resumed service to their UK network such as Belfast City, Glasgow, Liverpool, and London Gatwick and to a certain extent London Stansted.

In my opinion, I'm fairly certain that Leeds and Southampton could well be two possible contenders in the future to see service from Lufthansa.

Suggestion on the airports FB page that easyjet are to make SOU a base shortly, no idea if true!

And that is one of reasons why I have never ever been a member of Facebook. Comments like that on Facebook totally validates the reasons why the "social networking site" has never appealed to me.

Post 2171 on 20 October
Post 2271 on 5 November
I'm not sure if your comments are aimed at me - it's increasingly hard to ascertain who you are actually taking aim at on this thread right now - but the posts were referring to this news tonight. Announced in early November, one flight a week on each route isn't as big or flashy as expected and is less than easyJet had filed slots to operate. I am led to believe that there is a second round of announcements coming with another batch of routes and some services on existing routes to be released - apparently late this month.