Quite an interesting chat with an industry contact recently. One of the big issues at Southampton is the cost of aviation fuel, which is surprising when it's that close to Fawley refinery! It's apparently the most expensive of any decent-sized airport in the country - not far off double that at Bournemouth apparently - and unless you can carry roundtrip fuel into SOU, which isn't easy with the fairly limited runway length, it's incredibly costly to pick up fuel there. Might this be one reason behind the airport's stagnation?

Didn't easyJet do just that the other day with their diverted flight back to BFS. Goes to show it is possible on domestics, not sure for international, but interesting all the same.

Oh dear here we go again, after the previous regime realised their mistake and stopped saying it, the new one does exactly the same “aviation director Chris said will increase the number and size of plane now able to take off from Southampton”. Nothing bigger than what could pre-extension already use the airport is going to be appearing.

Just adding more fuel to the anti-airport lobby bonfire.

One would have thought that an Ops Director would have sufficient technical expertise to not make such a basic mistake.

Not in my experience of some Ops. Directors !

Nor mine, a long past predecessor at SOU got her 02 and 20 mixed up, and had a survey done on the opposite end of the runway to what was required. That one promptly ended up under the carpet!

New route
 

New route to Caen starting in June by Chalair ATR-42 twice per week

Credit to seanm on X

That's a nice and unexpected addition to SOU.

I've often wondered if Chalair would ever consider starting a Caen to Southampton route, and here we have it.

Would be nice if an operator could resume a link from Southampton to Rennes as it was a popular route with Flybe.

SOU now has 20 destinations from 9 Airlines. Most regional airports would love the thought of having 9 airlines. You would imagine, though, that most regional airports with 9 airlines would produce far more than 20 destinations. SOU should in reality be serving more than 20 destinations with 9 airline's.

If I remember correctly the highest amount of destinations served from SOU at any onetime was about 38 and from a much lesser amount of airline's.

I really don’t want to rain on the parade but it’s a little bit late to start a brand new route to somewhere that most people in the UK don’t know about and even where the place is and secondly who the heck is this airline ??

Chalair
 

Further to the above post's regarding the French regional airline Chalair announcing a seasonal service between Caen and Southampton.

Service commences on Friday 28 June 2024 and operates until 22 September 2024. Flights will operate twice weekly on a Friday and Sunday with an ATR 72.

​​​​​Friday schedule.

CE1431 CFR 10.00 SOU 09.45
CE1432 SOU 10.30 CFR 12.15

Sunday schedule.

CE1431 CFR 16.45 SOU 16.30
CE1432 SOU 17.15 CFR 19.00

Caen is a lovely city with lots to see and do, great food and loads of history. Close to Bayeux and the Normandy beaches. A great weekend getaway made even easier with this new direct link between the city and Southampton. Equally great for Caen and northern Normandy for an air connection to London via SOU.

Hopefully in the future we will see further French regional airports being added or resumed from Southampton.

Caen CFR was never flown by Flybe from Southampton, although it was previously served by a small French regional operator in the late 1980s, the name of which I can't remember.

You say you don’t want to rain on parade and then do exactly that!

Don't worry, to this poster if it’s not BOH it’s not worth worrying about.

Beat me to it. A very sad individual. Imagine being so angered by an inanimate object.

Good news we have a new airline and route. Shame it’s not somewhere a bit more south like Bordeaux as the second home market was quite a big thing for BE that hasn’t been replaced. You can get the ferry to Caen and other areas of northern France just down the road in Portsmouth as well. Hope it proves to be a success though.

Hopeful that easyJet will do Bordeaux summer seasonal as not sure BA will be back next summer with Bergerac

It is a shame that you find it impossible not to insult anyone that might be described as having an alternative view. Remember it is just an airport so stop getting angry.

Fingers crossed. You would like to think as they grow they will serve at least one French regional route. They have quite a big presence at Bordeaux and SOU use to have many routes to the towns around the Dordoyne region. The second home market must be strong in that area.

DORDOGNE even :ok:

List of former French 🇫🇷 destinations previously served from SOU.

Angers
Avignon
Bastia
Beziers
Biarritz
Bordeaux
Brest
Cherbourg
Clermont-Ferrand
Deauville
Dijon
Dinard
Grenoble
La Rochelle
Le Touquet
Limoges
Lyon
Nantes
Nice
Paris Orly
Pau
Perpignan
Rennes
Rodez
Rouen
Toulouse
Tours

Current French 🇫🇷 destinations served from SOU.

Bergerac
Caen
Chambéry
Paris CDG

A lot of catching up to do regarding many of those former French 🇫🇷 destinations previously flown from SOU. Although compared to other similiar UK regional airports, four French 🇫🇷 destinations is not too bad.

Hopefully easyjet at some point, might consider the following French 🇫🇷 destinations for SOU.

Bordeaux
Lyon
Nice
Paris, either CDG or ORY
Toulouse

Just to add, the amount of second home owners in France 🇫🇷 has severely dropped over the last few years so the demand is not what it used to be for the majority of French regional routes.

Have a good weekend everyone including RJ who's still recuperating by the sounds of it.

wow that’s a long list! Not sure however if all those were profitable for BE. EasyJet to Nice, CDG and Bordeaux (away bases) would do well in my opinion with of course CDG being year round. Also importantly no duplication with BOH.

It's always been a problem with Rivet Joint,if you have a view different to his then the personal insults follow.
Lets not be carried away with the Caen announcement, any new route from SOU is good news,but the list of French destinations that had been quoted that Easy might go for is pie in the sky.
SOU needs new Sun routes and increased frequency for a sustained future,competition is tough with Jet 2 down the road starting ,it seems Easy is the only airline at present that is committing in a limited way to provide some sun routes,2025 is going to be the tell-tell year for the airport.

Totally agree. No need to serve anywhere near that list of destinations any more. It’s an impressive list though.

Easy to Bordeaux, Paris and Nice would probably cover the majority of peoples needs. Let’s not forget at reduced airfares compared to what BE charged.

How many of the airlines that operated the long list still exist?

Agreed RW20 that 2025 will be a pivotal year although I don’t see Nice/Bordeaux being pie in the sky. Quite the opposite, these French regionals have always sold well from SOU and in addition to some easyJet summer sun are exactly what the airport should be targeting. Sun routes will always be limited by the fact that EZY med bases only total 5 (including Faro/Barcelona in this) so the hope must be that these weekly frequencies will be increased to add a little more capacity. It will then start to look a great deal more promising and all of which is not unrealistic. However what I don’t foresee is Greece, Turkey etc being added any time soon.

Having previously listed the former French destinations previously flown from SOU I thought that I would add all of the other destinations that were previously operated from SOU.

I previously listed these destinations in a post from a couple of years ago.

AUSTRIA 🇦🇹
Innsbruck
Salzburg

BELGIUM 🇧🇪
Antwerp
Brussels

BULGARIA 🇧🇬
Varna

CROATIA 🇭🇷
Dubrovnik
Split

CZECHIA 🇨🇿
Prague

GERMANY 🇩🇪
Berlin
Dusseldorf
Frankfurt
Hamburg via Antwerp
Hannover
Munich
Paderborn

GREECE 🇬🇷
Mykonos
Skiathos

IRELAND 🇮🇪
Cork
Galway

ITALY 🇮🇹
Alghero
Milan Bergamo
Milan Malpensa
Verona

MALTA 🇲🇹
Malta International

NETHERLANDS 🇳🇱
Rotterdam

SPAIN 🇪🇸
Barcelona
Ibiza
Lleida
Mahon
Murcia
Tenerife

SWITZERLAND 🇨🇭
Bern
Zurich

UNITED KINGDOM 🇬🇧
Birmingham
Bristol
Cardiff
East Midlands
Exeter
Gibraltar
Humberside
Inverness
Isle of Man
Leeds
London Stansted
Liverpool
Newquay
Norwich
Plymouth
St Mary's
Teesside

Current destinations flown from SOU.

FRANCE 🇫🇷
Bergerac
Caen
Chambéry
Paris CDG

IRELAND 🇮🇪
Dublin

NETHERLANDS 🇳🇱
Amsterdam

PORTUGAL 🇵🇹
Faro

SPAIN 🇪🇸
Alicante
Malaga
Palma

SWITZERLAND 🇨🇭
Geneva

UNITED KINGDOM including the Channel Islands 🇬🇧
Aberdeen via Newcastle
Alderney 🇬🇬
Belfast City
Belfast International
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Guernsey 🇬🇬
Jersey 🇯🇪
Newcastle
Stornoway via Glasgow (edit)

​​I'm sure many reading this will be fully aware of the current destinations flown from Southampton but I wanted to add them to give a better comparison to the previous ones.

Not forgetting Stornoway via GLA

Air France
Aurigny
British Airways
Eastern Airways

Although obviously the majority of those former French 🇫🇷 destinations were previously operated by Flybe.

I overlooked Stornoway. I will edit my post to include it.

I hate to do this and maybe it is time for me to get a life but can I point out that the Channel Islands are not part of the UK.

I worked for British Channel Island Ferries for eight years, and I am fully aware of that fact. But for arguments sake, it was easier to include them under the United Kingdom. The same applies to the Isle of Man which I also listed under the United Kingdom banner.

Edit..regarding my previous post. I have added flags attached to the destinations in the Channel Islands.

I appreciate your efforts. I promise not to be such an a-hole for a couple of days at least.

I think Turkey is operational out of range even with the extension ,however I think SOU management need to focus on Corfu,MaltaGenoa as they are not hugely developed from BOH. As stated before not being able to base A/C at SOU due restrictions is always going to hold back the airports development.

A couple of days is only two days. Can you at least make it a few days which is three day's or at the very least even more, maybe a week. But of course I am joking with you. But keep on track as I will be counting the days.

"As stated before"

That's a huge understatement as it's included in almost 90% of your posts.

Genoa is a great city indeed, but with British Airways, EasyJet, and Vueling ceasing flights from London to the Italian city over the last couple of years, I certainly can't see it being offered from Southampton.

Corfu and Malta, I'm in total agreement as both destinations are within reach of SOU.

Any discussions regarding destinations in Turkey 🇹🇷 should be instantly closed down due to the fact that the country is way beyond the operational limits of SOU.

Nice to see Caen added.

Daft commnet by the new Ops bloke re ''bigger planes'' LOL.

The majority of those former French leisure and ''second homer'' destinations as mostly previously operated by Flybe, were seasonal (Summer only)
In the Winter season some Ski resort airports are very popular as we currently see with Lyons and Chambery, and to nearby GVA.
Grenoble is another one.

Other routes notably missed are Verona WEDS and SUN (Summer) Flybe flew it twice weekly and Inghams Lakes and Mountains Holidays filled the planes.

Corfu (and Malta) could work if flown on a W pattern - say BRS-CFU-SOU-CFU-BRS, plus both Aegean, Sky Express and KM Malta Airlines fly a number of summer charter flights (with A320)

Skiathos and Mykonos were both a missed opportunity; Flybe's JSI charterer were a nightmare, and BAs JMK began in the throes and woes of the Pandemic.
Had they been properly marketed and the routes handled far better then they would have been winners.


If TUI Holidays had some guts and push then they could offer way more from SOU than just 2 flights a week to Majorca.
Any TUI expansion at SOU would not IMHO, impact their BOH expansion and could well set them apart from Jet2's start up at BOH by offering more holidays from 2 local airports.

Trouble is, and here's the thing, (which applies to both SOU and BOH) apart from winter flights to the Canaries and weekend SKI flights then the rest is all summer only.

because that's when the good people of the Southampton/Bournemouth area want to fly?

The whole area is (relatively) well off financially - but it's very much leisure based, and Euro-centred

For all those who have said the 737-800 can’t operate from SOU, an Enter Air 737-800 operated in and out effortless today. Albeit on a short hop.

never said it couldn't it's done it in the past but not with an economic core charter load to the likes of the Mediterranean Greek Islands or the Canaries but fine for football charters or short hops perhaps with no luggage so you answered your own question


Enter air have also flown into Gibraltar 🇬🇮 but with a limited load a sports team

GIBRALTAR cannot accommodate regular loaded 737 800 operations
The old classic versions could though no problem

'short hop' is a bit of an under-statement lol

Regarding the Enter Air Boeing 737-800 that arrived at SOU today.

It arrived from Brussels, and after a couple of hours on the ground, it later departed for Brize Norton.

Does anyone have any other information regarding these flights?

This morning, Saturday, 20 April 2024, there was an EasyJet A319, EasyJet A320 plus the Enter Air Boeing 737-800 on the ground at the same time. Hopefully someone took a photo of that.

As always, Sotonsean, an interesting post, but in the interests of objectivity I'll point out that comparing the destinations that have ever been served from an airport with the destinations served at one moment in time (i.e now) is probably always going to make things look bad now - the equivalent lists for Heathrow would probably show something similar. I agree, though, that SOU has taken a hit in a way many UK airports haven't.

I’m hearing a 3 aircraft base from March/April 2025 is on the cards. Mutterings in the crew room.

It apparently includes night stopping for the SOU based crew at AMS, MAN and BCN. There wouldn’t be overnighting aircraft in SOU.

Southampton is not a great airport for taking photos of some of the stands so this is the best I got.
https://i.postimg.cc/kGhznSjc/Enter-air.jpg

So today I called into SOU twice via train. After taking out a mortgage for the fare lets just say SOU with never benefit from London passengers using the airport as an alternative unless they are wealthy and don't mind a long train journey.
https://i.postimg.cc/MHBDyn06/Sou1.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/RV8ZqGXx/IMG-2770.jpg
I watched the easyjet depart using just half the runway, once it disappeared into the blue yonder the only sounds came from birdsong from the car park roof. As for the terminal, it is a delight and reminds me of Inverness.
https://i.postimg.cc/8z7CwLJm/South-3.jpg
Just 14 check-in desks plus 3 self service from Easyjet.
https://i.postimg.cc/nz2ZnL9L/South-4.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/rpqPMN1S/South-5.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/L6dHphXm/IMG-2773.jpg
So plenty of space with few passengers. Not what Southampton fan boys want to hear but from a passengers point of view it doesn't get much better than this. 10/10 for me.

Finally, I am sure the last time I called into the airport, part of the first floor was land side. This would be 30 plus years ago.