Have you heard the LH MUC rumour from somewhere else apart from here then? The discussion on here was around BER.

only further up this thread which mentioned SOU was now showing on Lufthansa’s 2021 flight offers, although currently without a destination. My guess would be MUC if any

A passenger feed for the cruise departures from Southampton would make sense. Are the operators of cruise liners and airlines that joined up in their thinking?

TUI are using BA’s Faro Saturday flights for some of their holidays this summer

Although the above is perfectly reasonable,the reality is that Summer 2021 is a non starter,this is a great shame considering that BA chose SOU for Summer operations of there city fleet.The rapidly mutating virus is set to challenge the world for some time,and as such flying is going to be severely curtailed for this year at least. Regional airports like SOU will struggle to survive,and some I'm sure will not be operational in the next couple of years. The world is under threat with covid,and many airlines and airports will suffer.

Crumbs, you’re a barrel of fun!

I think the BACF flying will do OK this year and sufficiently well to warrant a return for a far stronger year in 2022.

IOM
 

Isle of Man flights now bookable with Loganair, 3x weekly (Tue, Thur, Sat) on an ATR72 from the 1st of June. Looks like a late morning arrival and lunchtime departure.

Fares not extortionate either.

I'm not too convinced by a market in SOU for IOM. I know a big part of the assessment for the route viability on the IOM side has been at a target of the cruise market in particular. With that showing little to no signs of recovery in the next 12 months, I'm not too sure this is the year for IOM-SOU. Then again, SOU seems to be the fastest growing airport in the UK in terms of new routes these days.

Jet Maintenance at Sou
 

More good news for Southampton is that Jetworks appear to be relocating from BOH to Southampton. They are using hangar 1 (known locally as the Somers hangar) which normally just houses resident Da900 VP-BPW. First arrival was G-SMHA DA7x yesterday so excellent news to get an established Maintenance firm on site and get some use for that wasted hangar space!

Now that is excellent news. New routes aside, one of SOU's disadvantages in recent years has been its lack of diversified business. Having a based maintenance organisation is really positive and something that the airport hasn't had for at least ten years. The Somers hangar is large and occupies prime real estate, so it's great to finally see it provide more value to the airport than housing a single Falcon.

Is this definitely a relocation or are they opening an additional site at SOU?
Does this mean that Somers are vacating the hangar or will V-PW remain based there?

It’s a relocation off the operation to Southampton. Not sure about Somers vacating the hangar but I suspect V-PW will remain based as it was already maintained by Jetworks.

Thanks for the reply!

BACF pricing seems very competitive if the PMI route is anything to go by. Adult return selling for £270 mid August compared to £380 with RYR from BOH on same dates, know who I would rather fly with!

Ryanair flight BOH>PMI departing Fri 13/8 and returning Fri 20/8 is showing as £60/£71 = £131 return

To be fair and I am not a BOH v SOU never have been it’s a ridiculous scenario to get into as both airports complement each other , but I do think you you have to be careful regarding fare comparisons, as we all no they change by the hour

An example tonight
14th Aug to 21st Aug.
Palma no baggage, 1 person

SOU with BA city flyer £ 231
BOH with FR £ 221

Both are way below what the fares would normally be. August is a month that families get massively ripped off, or did. Do the comparison in a couple of months time, for the same flights, the comparison will be interesting.

I still think that the major issue for travel next summer will be a worldwide standard for a vaccine passport. No way will counties permit entry without double vaccine proof. I hope the airlines, in fact all modes of international transportation come together on a single format.

BA at SOU
 

With the recent announcement of BA's return to Southampton, that has left me wondering how big an operation BA once had at SOU, and also where they flew. Found an old timetable for W01/02 (not sure if printed pre or post 9/11 though) which must've been near the peak as they had quite a large operation there. I understand from 2003 onwards BA started to cut down their regional operation, before of course flogging what was left off to Flybe in 2006.

For W01/02 it appears they had 4x E145 based (I think these are the only type they used to base in SOU, flight times look right for a jet...) flying the following:

BHD - 1x weekly (Sat)
BRU - 11x weekly
DUB - 17 weekly
EDI - 23 weekly
FRA - 6 weekly
GLA - 23 weekly
JER - 5 weekly (Mon-Fri)

On top of this there was also:

ABZ - 13 weekly (via NCL/LBA)
BHD - 11 weekly DH3? (12 weekly total)
JER - 30 weekly AT7 (35 weekly total)
LBA - 16 weekly J41
MAN - 16 weekly ATP?
NCL - 13 weekly DH3

All in all up to 30 departures on some weekdays. ​​​​​In comparison, some little regional airline called 'British European' could only fly you to Guernsey up to 5 times a day during the same period!

Volotea summer 2021
 

I see all the Volotea’s 717’s have left their fleet now ,
If the holidays do get started later this year ,I wonder if the 319’s will operate this flight but with reduced loads ?
cheers col

319’s were used in the earlier days of ops from SOU, however rumour is BACF are taking over this summers charter service for TUI and dropping to Sat departure only to PMI!

I did wonder that ,as I had heard when the 319 was used on several occasions, some luggage was left behind because of the weight restrictions.

stewyb

Let's all be realistic!,Summer 2021 will be very limited with restrictions across the board. So BA operation from SOU will be very limited at best ,indeed the heralded return may be short lived.The aviation industry will be radically changed over the next couple of years ,Key airports in the UK will survive with government support,but some will close, SOU future must surely be in question,especially as the land at the airport must be worth a fortune to the owners. As for the runway extension application,this must now be a total non starter, becoming more irrelevant as the covid crisis continues and effects the aviation industry

SKOJB

Brilliant news that the fairs are competitive! also great news about the IOM route and the maintenance company moving from BOH. I have always thought that SOU could accommodate more private aircraft with its wealthy catchment. The plan has always been for the maintenance and business flights to relocate to the land on the north east. Maybe SOU could attract one of the big private jet companies to open up a base on that land and take some of FAB’s traffic.

I also wanted to generally comment about the much more positive posts that are appearing on this thread. It’s great to see and let’s hope it continues. We all know that one strange individual seems to have an agenda against SOU and if we could continue to ignore him hopefully he will go away. Being positive is clearly paying off for the management at SOU with all the good news lately.

Rivet Joint

Doesn't the Signature FBO already cover any demand?

Kind of but not quite- Signature regularly have to turn down potential business due to space available/bookings already made.
Another FBO would find enough make to make them viable IMHO, although the recent Jetworks news is probably the best scenario- more based bizjets and movements but not competing directly with Signature as they're offering different services not currently available at the airport.
An FBO serving G/A and light bizjets/props would definitely be welcome though- there's huge demand for these flights in the area and at SOU, but they're priced out by Signature's handling fees and airfield ops don't have the resources or space to handle them on a regular basis. This sort of business would do well at SOU and may pick up some work from Bournemouth, Lee on Solent etc.

Great news that BA Cityflyer is now teaming up with Loganair to sell UK domestic flights from Southampton! This could be the first step in the airline actually providing some of their own capacity in the future on these routes possibly....

Is this cityflyer adding a code and selling Loganair flights, is it a BA code being added to Loganair flights (i.e. driven by BA themselves rather than cityflyer)...or is it simply a Loganair codeshare onto the cityflyer-operated Edinburgh-Southampton/vv glorified positioning legs in summer?

The airport's social media pages suggest that BA are putting a codeshare on the Loganair routes to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....9f585f8dc9.jpg

I would hazard a guess at the main reason why Jetworks are moving from BOH to SOU is due to the competition from GAMA now being on the doorstep.

Confirmed.

https://www.air101.co.uk/2021/01/bri...o/fMxO+(Air101)

pabely

True but as Nutts Mutts has said they do seem to be constantly turning down business. I have witnessed a number of times a business flight landing whilst one is having to leave. I suspect apron space is very limited currently. The supposed move to the north east land would presumably provide more apron space, which the rich catchment could clearly fill. I also wondered whether SOU could approach one of the OEMs such as bombardier, Cessna etc to open up a maintenance base on that land, but they may already have such operations at the London airports. There cannot be much development land in the country with access to a runway. It would be a shame if it is just handed over for more industrial storage sheds that have no aviation connection.

Any additional traffic outside of scheduled movements will be very difficult to accommodate, bad enough now trying to gain planning for increased core business. Hence don’t foresee the north east side of airport being redeveloped any time soon, especially for anything aviation related!

T3 @ SOU
 

Eastern Airways to launch 2 new routes from Southampton:

• Rennes - begins 29 April 2021 operating on Tuesdays, Thursdays & Sundays
• Nantes - begins 30 April 2021 operating on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays

Flights operated on ATR72-600 aircraft

Credit to Sean M 1997 on social media

stewyb

Unfortunately you are probably right. I still find it a scandal that the ford factory was turned over to some large sheds with a skeleton workforce of low skilled workers. Meanwhile in Wales and eastern europe car manufacturers are given tax payers money to open factories. You would like to think the Council would not want to make the same mistake with the airport's north east land, which could attract high skilled maintenance and design jobs. As we have seen with the runway extension though, the environment seems to outrank job creation which in global recession is quite insane.

Good news T3 have picked up some French routes. It does seem to be a constant stream of good news at SOU, if only the same positivity was present at the local authorites!

Rivet - revised planning app went live today. Airport picking up some decent routes again with more to follow, all they need now is some passengers!

It's amazing that some contributors to this post continue to get excited about new routes and carriers who might come to SOU.The cold facts are that there will be little or no Sun routes this year,and indeed any so called second homes routes.Europe will like the UK struggle to contain the existing virus and will probably have to constrain many new mutants.BA much published Southampton return will surely be curtailed,KLM will not return for the forseable future,Easy winter operation might be active for 2021/2022 Winter.This leaves a restricted UK operation,something I can't see the airport surviving on .As for the runway extension,the farcical situation continues to roll on,bearing in mind it was 2019 that application was made! EBC need to confirm that this is not going to happen in the present covid climate,and allow some of the over speculative contributors to this post to get on with the life

If SOU airport is in any really serious danger of filing for bankruptcy AND not being able to reopen under some kind of debt restructuring / bankruptcy process, then it's likely Govt cash will be found from somewhere - be that Eastleigh, Southampton, Hampshire or Westminster, along with a bit of cash perhaps from major employers in the area. SOU will still be a functioning airport in 5 years time; the question is which passenger services will remain and who will own the airport

RW20

Top trolling, well done. I hope it makes you happy.

Move along, nothing to see here...

Well said. As I keep saying if you ignore a troll it will go away after a while. Constructive criticism is fine, but clearly there is an agenda here or a screw lose. The same message posted frequently for well over a year? Are there any mods on here? Surely a ban is in order by now.

Unfortunately ignoring the troll hasn’t made it disappear. Such a sad individual.