Gosh! This is an epiphany moment. Quite right, accentuate the positive.

Don't agree either. I live in West Berks, about 40 miles from LHR and SOU. Back a few years ago when I was flying for work trips I always used SOU to go to places like JER, GCI, BHD and GLA. LHR (or LGW) for longer-haul stuff.

My SOU trips were nearly always daytrips aswell. SOU made that easy as, for example, at LHR it's just not possible to be driving out of the airport 10 minutes after getting off the aeroplane. I lament that many of these daytrip options now seem to be increasingly unavailable.

Some facts to clear up some confusion:

- A direct quote from the airport was that it cannot be profitable with the likes of Loganair serving regional routes. So it needs the scale of a low cost operator as a regional the size of Flybe is unlikely ever to happen again. So let’s all stop caring about bloody Loganair! They have been making hay whilst the sun-shined but are of no use to a profitable airport that want thousands using their shops, parking and facilities rather than a hundred or so. Please let this sink in as it’s direct from the airport and puts any debate of a low cost operator vs a regional to bed. It’s a low cost operator or nothing in today’s world.

- Frequency and the ability to do a day trip is a nice to have but I bet you can fly Easy to Glasgow, get a hotel for the night and a meal and still have paid less than a day return on Logan. Less frequency is only going to be an issue for a very small amount of people.

- It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Emerald as things stand are doing very well and are seeing growth. Having the Aer Lingus code share and brand gives them an edge. It’s the same reason why Easy could probably do AMS and KLM still stay with its world connections.

- The current rumours are that more routes will be added but from aircraft based elsewhere. Other bases have grown this way. You can still have a crew base in SOU but no aircraft based.

-Easy are now starting to rapidly add new aircraft so will now have capacity for growth.

If we're dealing in facts as you suggest, there's nowhere on the easyJet network where they do that. Any crew base has aircraft based there. It's ludicrous to suggest they might have Southampton-based crew but no Southampton-based aircraft.

They do nightstop away from base in a few locations - ABZ, INV, BHD and JER spring to mind for Gatwick - but that's about as far as it goes.

Hopefully easyJet will add another couple of routes for this winter season.

This from the man who got his arse handed to him on the Loganair thread for an angry rant about he can't comprehend Loganair and they're doomed to failure for abandoning Southampton for "barren Scottish islands". What you're continually ignoring after having it spelled out to you, is SOU can have one of two things on a route.
1) High frequency, higher cost on a turboprop or an ERJ
2) High volume, low cost, poor frequency on an A320 series

With a SOU sized market, there's no room for both. No point raging at Loganair when they do exactly what they were expected to do to survive.

SOU 2023 Full Year Route Breakdown
 

A break from the usual arguments/repeated posts/personal attacks:

Summary of passenger numbers & changes on all regular scheduled and charter routes for 2023, including % change on 2022.

UK

Aberdeen - 6,115 (+95%)
Alderney - 17,214 (+1%)
Belfast City - 79,810 (+32%)
Belfast International - 5,332 (New)
Edinburgh - 89,058 (+9%)
Glasgow - 87,044 (+16%)
Guernsey - 97,466 (+1%)
Jersey - 99,895 (+0%)
Manchester - 5,515 (-49%)
Newcastle - 46,908 (+20%)
Stornoway - 5,201 (New)

Total UK - 493,119

Republic of Ireland

Dublin - 76,300 (+150%)

France

Bergerac - 3,452 (-53%)
Chambery - 4,445 (+47%)
Limoges - 981 (-65%)
Paris Orly - 9,043 (New)

Total France - 17,921

Netherlands

Amsterdam - 86,015 (+63%)

Switzerland

Geneva - 17,934 (+92%)

Austria

Salzburg - 1,895 (+46%)

Spain

Alicante - 1,112 (-73%)
Palma - 16,239 (+27%)
Malaga - 3,868 (-48%)

Total Spain - 21,219

Portugal

Faro - 3,766 (-4%)


Total Overall - 754,931 (+20%, includes charters/one off flights/diversions etc)

What is the source of your data? The CAA table 12.3 gives slightly different numbers (not that it matters)

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c7cc7eeb57.png

The same tables in a different document has different numbers! There is presumably a counting detail difference between them. https://www.caa.co.uk/Documents/Down...accf0d90/16429

So how would that work without some non based flight crew day stopping at SOU while a SOU crew took over?

Some great figures there. Circa 90k on Glasgow and Edinburgh is food for thought for the likes of Easy. Let’s not forget that those numbers are largely from people paying Loganair prices so imagine what the numbers could be if both routes were served by Easy? Belfast, Dublin and Amsterdam also very strong.

Interview with Christopher Tibbett, Aviation Director, AGS Airports, at Routes Europe 2024.

Thanks Adfly, good data as ever. Apart from numbers for the Channel Islands, EDI/LM with 90k seems to have held up well (but with limited growth) and there has no doubt been some leakage to Ryanair at BOH with 48k on the same route. With this in mind, I would stake money on easyJet jumping on this from October with a daily 320 that would deliver well over 100k seats. LM coming off GLA means easyjet may see this as a time to move in for the kill. Really hard on LM when they delivered a decent recovery for the airport after Covid/BE but I guess this is how the big, bad, ruthless LCC operate!

It's the nature of the business. Flybe and Air Southwest for example.

Was said tongue in cheek

apologies its hard to tell on this thread TBH

I see EasyJet has just flown a new A320 neo on the Southampton to Glasgow route. Is this a first for the airport?

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....9356106944.png