I've just been looking at the BA flights with a view to booking a family week in Ibiza next summer during the school holidays. Unfortunately, as we can only fly out on a Sunday we'd have to come back the following Saturday as there is no Sunday inbound flight from IBZ to SOU.

It all looks a bit confusing at this stage, with one outbound IBZ flight on a Saturday and two inbound, and then an outbound flight on Sunday but no inbound. Same with JMK, you have to fly out on Sunday but return the following Saturday, so if you fly from SOU you're limited to a six day holiday - I'd imagine this might put some people off and make them book a standard seven day trip from another airport.

Is there anyone with BACF knowledge out there who has any idea whether further flights will be added at a later date to fill in the schedule?

BA/CF aircraft effectively return to LCY on the Sunday via various destinations, this is why there are an imbalance of rotations/frequencies.

For instance LCY is closed for 24 hours over the weekend. It closes midday Saturday, opening midday Sunday. The aircraft leaves LCY Saturday for JMK and operates inbound to SOU. It will then stay at SOU operating a rotation or two before returning to JMK Sunday morning where it’ll return to LCY.

Same happens with IBZ on the Sunday, but the aircraft may not come from IBZ On the Friday/Saturday, possibly a different destination. This is how you get an extra outbound but no return;

Saturday;

LCY - XXX - SOU

SOU - XXX - SOU

Sunday;

SOU - IBZ - LCY

Hope the above makes sense.

Thanks for the explanation. It seems a little churlish to be complaining about the BACF operation already given that it's a great boost for SOU, but it's a bit of a pain that the schedule is so imbalanced due to all of the position flights and W-patterns. It certainly makes booking a holiday a little more complicated!

I do appreciate the misaligned days aren’t ideal, but BACF have done a better job at SOU than previous attempts.

For IBZ, yes the outbounds are Sat/Sun and inbounds Sat(x2), but that still allows a nice Sat-Sat holiday. You could argue the Sunday flight is an extra bonus.

The route where I see the biggest issue is JMK. Passengers will have to do 6 or 13 nights which isn’t ideal. I don’t envisage this route will do particularly well.

While the schedule isn’t exactly ideal, I will put money on the people complaining about it and booking a 7 day Greek holiday from LGW instead of 6 from SOU will be the first to moan when BACF pull out or don’t return in S22 due to lack of demand.

Crazy that anyone is complaining about frequencies. In the current climate anything is gold.

Spot on, I think SOU have done a great job in attracting BA in this current climate and their departures board is already shaping up to look better than many other regionals. Let’s just wait and look forward to this summer hopefully getting back to some sort of normality with decent loads on these new routes!

Mykonos is mainly a young persons destination. If I take my own early twenties offsping as an example they won't be too bothered if it's a 6 or 7 day holiday.

Ba city flyer flights 2021
 

Exactly a 6 or 13 night holiday is a 100 % more than what most have had this year .
We should all be grateful for what is being offered from our local airport ,rather than being ungrateful for what is not being offered .

Will hotels and villa rentals provide the same per-night rate on a 6 night stay as a 7 night stay ?

We are in the 2020’s.You can book any duration you like on most of the suppliers. Most of Mykonos is small hotels, B&B’s, the villa market on the island is minuscule compared to other places.

I actually think the 13 night option is great if you want to do some island hopping with some great islands within easy reach of Mykonos.

easyJet W21/22
 

easyJet flights are now on sale for next winter. GVA-SOU is bookable again Dec-Mar 3x weekly (Thurs/Sat/Sun).

Aurigny S21
 

Aurigny clearly want a larger slice of the Guernsey - Southampton route. I believe it is the only route that has been increased compared to what was planned for S20. It is now due to be 3 daily every day (21 weekly) next summer. Alderney is not on sale yet though.

With Blue Islands offering 29 weekly flights that means 7 flights every day, and 8 on a Friday. I expect it may overtake Gatwick as the busiest UK route from Guernsey, as that has been cut back to 28 weekly.

Let’s wait and see. With the current climate as is, this timetable will know doubt change throughout the next few months and will adjust according to how we are dealing with a pandemic exit and supplier demand that follows. In the meantime it’s nice to see route confidence

How on earth you are going to administer 100 million vaccinations before the commencement of the summer season? I agree with stewyb.

Since Ryanairs announcement that they are doing BOH-EGC, BACF have finally reduced their fares on their own SOU-EGC route. Will be interesting to see how this plays out given that the sort of people heading to EGC are affluent and probably want avios points over the horrendous experience that is Ryanair.

many who travel from the region are to their second homes down in the Dordogne etc. Quick check shows return fares midweek in August for BA is £140 v Ryanair £188

BA started running a sale on Thursday, could that explain the drop in prices you're seeing?

Pricing certainly seems to have been adjusted to become very competitive

Aurigny Alderney
 

Alderney is now on sale for S21, 14 weekly flights bookable all summer.