SOUTHAMPTON

[Centre cities]

With 175's operating from BHX to AGP and PMI there is surly no reason for them not to do so from Southampton.

Centre cities

[Wycombe]

....except that BHX's 15/33 is a little bit longer (even leaving aside the extension) than SOU's 20/02!

[hampshireandy]

Airlines are not interested in Southampton quite simply because it isnt fit for purpose.
Stands too small, runway too short, aircraft having to backtrack due to lack of taxiway.
Why not turn it into a business park and have a massive expansion at Bournmouth??

[Wycombe]

Errr, because SOU is very good from an accessibility point-of-view (rail, road, both far far better than BOH will ever be) and is also nearer than BOH to some affluent catchment areas.

I agree that operationally it is very restricted (and for more reasons than you mention), but the average pax who knows nothing about aviation doesnt care about this.

[hampshireandy]

If its so wonderful then how can an airline that has a virtual monopoly on operations there make such a pigs ear of it?? Or does that say more about Flybe than the airport?

And its nothing to do with what passengers think, its how successful, or not, it actually is.

[davidjohnson6]

SOU and BOH are each owned by competing private companies. Neither will want to hand their business over to a rival for free. Govt is not about to pay £100m+ to compensate for intended change of use. There are simply far too many entrenched interests who would demand far too much money for SOU to be closed, never mind the monopoly issue

If an airport can pull in over 1m pax per year, there are likely good reasons for the airport remaining in place, regardless of issues that may exist.

[TCAS FAN]

Centre Cities

Problem with BEE's 175s is that they are underpowered, a choice that BEE made presumably on operating costs, rather than use the higher powered engine variants. Take the engines off their 195s, bolt them on the 175s, job done, Malaga, Faro etc here we come!

As I mentioned in my 28 January post, problem is not just the current runway length its " the close-in obstacle problems (mainly trees near Mansbridge".

SOU has two runway 20 Type A take-off charts, one climbing straight ahead towards the hill, and another making a right turn after take-off to avoid the hill. The latter is worth around 1-2 tonnes extra take-off weight when I last checked performance charts. Due to the close proximity of trees (Marhill Copse I believe is the name of their location) to the end of the runway many aircraft cannot take advantage of the angled take-off path. Remove the offending trees and they can. From my previous rants you will see that this was part of my 20+ years of frustration working for "the world class airport group" who's priority appeared to be more focused on world class terminal toilets.

[Phileas Fogg]

Airlines are not interested in Southampton quite simply because it isnt fit for purpose.
Stands too small, runway too short, aircraft having to backtrack due to lack of taxiway.
Why not turn it into a business park and have a massive expansion at Bournmouth??

Bournemouth Airport - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournemouth_Airport)

From November 1944 the airfield took over from Bristol's Whitchurch airport as the main operating base for British Overseas Airways Corporation until Heathrow fully opened in 1948. Starting in October 1945 Hurn served as London's transatlantic airport until Heathrow opened to the airlines in mid-1946. It was the starting point of the first England-Australia landplane service, which took three days in Avro Lancastrians (modified Lancaster bombers). The airport served Accra, Cairo, Calcutta, Johannesburg, New York, Sydney and Washington D.C.



BOH had it's place in history as did such an airport as LPL, get over it!

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m88rpxFEJv1qhnkvco1_500.jpg

[Torquelink]

If its so wonderful then how can an airline that has a virtual monopoly on operations there make such a pigs ear of it?? Or does that say more about Flybe than the airport?

Yes it does: among highest seat-mile costs and lowest aircraft and crew productivities in Europe according to new management.

[Bournemouth Air]

Bournemouth Airport welcomes new Turkish route with operator OSKA Travel

[Bournemouth Air]

Route cancellations information | Flybe | Cheap flights & budget flights (http://en.flybe.com/changeform/route-cancellations.htm)

[davidjohnson6]

The link about route cancellations seem to refer to the announcement made 2 months ago. Is there something new in the link that hasn't been widely publicised yet ?

[MARKEYD]

Flybe are operating a new ski charter next winter for Neilson Ski on a Sunday to Lleida Algvaire ( Andora i believe ! )

Flights depart at 0730 rtn 1315 DHC 400

[davidjohnson6]

Flybe are operating a charter for Neilson / Thomas Cook from Southampton to Lleida this winter every Sunday as well.
The only difference, is that flight times this winter are about 20 mins later than those you mentioned.

SOU 0750 ILD 1120 BE9917
ILD 1205 SOU 1335 BE9918

If anyone knows a way to book a seat on this flight without buying a 7-night holiday, please tell me - I've spent ages on the phone to Neilson, Thomas Cook and Flybe in an attempt to get a seat but to no avail

[adfly]

One thing I find interesting is despite the reasonably well off catchment area there is only one route to Italy from SOU. Verona appears to be doing very well too having been increased from weekly in 2010-12 to 2x last year and it will be 3x this year. This has been helped by the various tour operators that sell seats/packages to Verona and Lake Garda.

The Palmair Italian routes from BOH always used to do well, and newmarket are also doing well from there with the limited number of flights/packages they offer. I guess the chances of additional Italian routes from SOU has been slimmed significantly by Flybe's decision to ditch the E195's in favour of the more efficient but underpowered E175's. Still, I would think the likes of FCO, MXP, NAP, PSA, VCE would be viable a few times per week, especially with the backing of a tour operator or two.

As for who could operate them Flybe might look at MXP/VCE as they are not much further than VRN. However I do wonder if Volotea would look into operating from SOU, as it seems to suit their business plan of operating 'secondary' european routes away from the major loco competition. They could also look at operating some of the sun routes which will be dropped from October.

[canberra97]

I too was thinking along the same lines regarding Volotea, that is just the type of airline SOU needs to replace Flybe on their sun routes along with additional routes as you suggested.

[BOHEuropean]

Forgive me, but I thought Volotea was actually flying into SOU this summer on behalf of a tour operator. Palma, I think?

[uptoncol]

Yes they are , chartered by thomson the first flight is 24 may.
Cheers col

[canberra97]

Although we are aware that Volotea are flying on behalf of Thomson this summer from SOU to Palma the point we were making was that this was the perfect sort of airline that could work on a scheduled basis from SOU, if you look at their route map you will understand what we meant.

[Bournemouth Air]

http://http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/11072432.Runway_expansion_could_create_1000_new_jobs_at_airp ort/?ref=var_0 (http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/11072432.Runway_expansion_could_create_1000_new_jobs_at_airp ort/?ref=var_0)

[adfly]

That, along with that frequently ranted about new taxiway would be a very good step in the right direction. And I'd bet it has some link to Flybe ending the sun routes and ditching the E195's at the end of the summer!

The 5% increase in passengers for February is also good to see.

[TCAS FAN]

Assuming that the whole 150 metres extension is available for take-off, that will give a 1800m TORA for runway 20. CAA may however insist that it is published as 1799m to stay within Code 3 runway dimensions (due to the runway width, ie less than 45m). That's 61 metres better than SEN, albeit SEN doesn't have the same obstacle problem off the end of the runway.

Could the future be orange?

[hampshireandy]

lets hope so, its bound to be an improvement on Flybe, and about time they had some competition to wake them up.

[Cloud1]

Dont get too carried away hampshireandy....

EZY will not be able to offer any useful schedule from SOU to domestic or 'local Europe' considering the size of their aircraft in relation to competition at other airports such as LGW and a fairly low demand for domestic air travel.

SOU is a great airport but the infrastructure is stretched to its max at times. Whilst it gets busy there is not enough demand to cater for two airlines and it is certainly not cost or reliability which keeps the numbers low. BE are actually not that badly priced in comparison to other airports when you factor in additional costs. It is a similar story if you want to travel say from EXT with Thomson - they are often hundreds of pounds more expensive than BRS.

Reliability wise, statistics show BE are actually above average and their competition. (CAA stats)

EZY touching down at SOU would not neccesarily be a good thing. The only benefit would be if they picked up some of the Spanish routes once Flybe stop them but BE simply will not give a monkeys by then. Should the A319s in orange ever start using SOU it will be on routes which wouldnt even effect BE and if they did, it would be EZY backing off them eventually.

[davidjohnson6]

Clermont-Ferrand increased from 1x weekly to 3x weekly
Not 100% convinced there is demand based on passenger numbers in previous years, but whoever made the decision presumably has access to forward booking numbers and other non-public commercial information

[adfly]

In this post I shall try and summarise all of the key changes compared to last summer.

Aurigny:

Same as ever ~21 weekly flights to ACI with extra in the peak/for Alderny week.

Blue Islands:

No changes for JER, GCI will be all on the 66 seat ATR 72 500, a significant increase compared to the 19 seat J32 used last year.

Eastern:

'New' Routes -

LBA - 15x weekly J41/S20

Increases -

ABZ - 10x weekly J41/S20 (6x weekly in S13)

Flybe:

Increases -

AMS - 22 weekly (19 weekly in S13)
BES - 4 weekly (3 weekly in S13)
CFE - 2/3 weekly (1 weekly in S13)
EGC - 8 weekly (7 weekly in S13 - 2nd Sat flight added)
EDI - 32 weekly (~30 weekly in S13 - main difference is there are 5 flights on every weekday now)
GCI - 28 weekly (26 weekly in S13)
JER - 32 weekly (26 weekly in S13)
VRN - 3 weekly (2 weekly in S13 - 2nd Sat flight added)

Decreases -

DUB - 21 weekly (up to 24 weekly in S13)
NCE - 3 weekly (up to 4 weekly in S13)
PMI - 5 weekly (up to 6 weekly in S13)

Dropped Routes -

BCN - 2 weekly
BZR - 2 weekly
HAJ - 6 weekly
IOM - 3 weekly
LBA - 17 weekly

Other things to note are -

EDI/GLA have gone from mostly E195's to mostly Q400's.
The early afternoon DUB flight has been upgraded to an E195.

Thomas Cook:

New Routes -

FAO - 6 weekly (selling seats/packages on BE flights)

Increases -

PMI - 5 weekly (1 weekly charter in S13, as above for S14)
VRN - 3 weekly (2 weekly in S13, again as above)

Dropped Routes -

IBZ - 1 weekly in S13
MAH - 1 weekly in S13

Thomson:

PMI - 1 weekly (Using a Volotea 717, sold packages on scheduled BE flights last year)

[anne747380]

How many E-Jets will Southampton have this summer?Somewhere here,I read that by the end of March they are withdrawing most of them ecept for 4,is that right?

[GCILover]

Does anyone know if any airline has shown interest in the Spanish routes when flybe pull the plug at the end of the season.

It will be a dramatic loss of flights if no one picks any of them up.

[adfly]

It's surprisingly hard to find a suitable carrier -

Ryanair - Nope, they seem quite happy at BOH plus the runway/stands are useless for them.
Easyjet - Unlikely, fairly close to LGW, runway less of an issue but stands still can only take 2 A319/20's at a time.
Thomson - Tend to fly a mix of shorter and longer routes so the runway is too short as are the stands, plus they also seem happy at BOH. However some extra W pattern flights to PMI could appear next year if they have room to in the schedule.
Thomas Cook - As above, could see the odd W pattern to the Balearic's at best.
Monarch - Still quite unlikely due to stands (notice a trend?) but they do fly more <3 hour routes than TOM/TCX so the runway could be less of an issue. I'd say they have a small outside chance.
Jet2 - On paper they seem the most suitable, stands are less of an issue for the 733's however I question whether they would want to start flying from t'south where they have far less brand recognition.

As for foreign carriers Vueling could take a second look and have an operation similar to their CWL one. HOP! could look at serving Nice if the demand is strong enough for a foreign carrier with less recognition in the UK to serve it. Volotea would be an outside suggestion...

[gkmeech]

I too would like to know who are picking up the 'Summer Sun' routes from SOU. I have flown with Flybe to Majorca every year that they have operated the flights. There has never been a flight where there was less than 85% load factor on an E195. Seems strange that no-one would be interested. I have asked Southampton Airport on a couple of occasions but they totally avoid answering my question.

[Groundloop]

As 85% of 118 is only 100 this may be why many operators of larger aircraft may not be interested.

[davidjohnson6]

It's April, and many carriers are still in the process of releasing seats for winter 14/15. I imagine LCCs will begin releasing summer 2015 seats around September later this year.
Perhaps best to wait until the autumn before anything about the future of beach routes from SOU is revealed ?

[gkmeech]

FlyBe used to run the Malaga and Alicante sectors throughout the winter as well.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

...and never made any money on them, even when they were full.

[MARKEYD]

I would imagine Ryanair will clear up on the sun routes for sure as they have already increased frequency on many routes down the road at Bournemouth this summer in anticipation of Flybe and this winter , with no flights being offered will only add to there delight

Thomson are repeating this summer season holidays and flights to Palma with a Volotea B 717 operating the Saturday service again for 2015

[adfly]

Good to see Thomson returning next year, SOU will have at least one Spanish route for S15! Hopefully they will look and see if they have room to add extra flights or use a larger aircraft as most of this years years flights seem to be fully or mostly booked already according to their website.

[MARKEYD]

Flybe are slowly releasing seats for the winter 2014 / 15 season and at the moment the Ski flights seem to well down on last year . This could all change though as very earl days still

Geneva which was daily throughout the winter goes back to 3 flights at the weekend ( may be Easy Jet at Bournemouth have the monoply on that route these days ) Chambery has 2 flights along with 1 flight to SZG and GNB all using the Dash 8 400

Inghams Ski return with a service to Innsbruck using Austrian again

No sign of Thomas Cook returning for summer 2015 at the moment

[uptoncol]

With Ref to no flights chartered by Thomas cook for summer 2015 last year they never appeared until the 2nd edition brouchers went on sale which is normally the last Thursday in july .


col

[adfly]

Flybe's winter schedule has a few changes compared to last year:

All the Ski routes return mid December (GVA, SZG, CMF, GNB) however GVA is down significantly, from up to 9 weekly last year (daily and 2x on Sat/Sun) to just 3 weekly (2x Sat 1x Sun) CMF is 1x Sat 1x Sun and GNB/SZG are 1x Sat.

ALC/AGP (operated 3 weekly for most of the past winter) have been dropped as a result of the culling of the E195's from the fleet leaving SOU with no winter sun destinations.

DUB increases to 27 weekly (4x daily and 3x on Sat) with a new late evening flight that over nights in DUB (think it is 'based' there for the LCY route).

The rest of the schedule seems to be pretty similar. In addition, Inghams will continue their Saturday INN flight for next winter and it will be again be operated by Austrian/Tyrolean. Neilson are also still flying a weekly Sunday charter to ILD, although it is on a Q400 next winter.

[GCILover]

Are you sure it's LEI. Almeria???

[davidjohnson6]

Perhaps ILD for Lleida in the Pyrenees for skiers ?

[adfly]

Yes, that's the one! Corrected in the other post now. :)

[darren1]

With the biggest Embraers and sun routes going and BE focus on BHX, what does the future hold for SOU?

[adfly]

Flybe have extended SOU-ALC/AGP/FAO so they will now all run until the 2nd November rather than the 30th Sept/1st Oct. Still no word on whether any of the 'med routes' will be operated by anyone next summer (aside from Thomson's weekly PMI).

[MARKEYD]

I would imagine they have extened the season to Nov to cover for the school half term which is always popular for Med flights
Ryanair have also done the same at Bournemouth by extending there seasonal flights to Nov 5

Very strange though there are still no flights on sale past Jan 3 with Flybe to any destination , they really must be missing out on advance sales considering all the other UK bases are on sale for the winter

[Phileas Fogg]

Flybe have extended FAO so will now run until the 2nd November rather than the 30th Sept/1st Oct. Still no word on whether any of the 'med routes' will be operated by anyone next summer (aside from Thomson's weekly PMI).

I would imagine they have extened the season to Nov to cover for the school half term which is always popular for Med flights

By "med" may I presume y'all mean the Mediterranean Sea? ... Has Faro moved since I last checked?

[adfly]

'med or Mediterranean' is commonly used to describe southern European coastal destinations such as the ones that I have mentioned, even if it is not always 100% geographically accurate (Faro is hardly far from it anyway) so there really isn't a need to be so pedantic as I'm sure 99% of the people who read the post know what I am talking about when I say 'med destinations'. If I was saying somewhere like Madeira was in the Mediterranean then I'd be inclined to agree with you.

[hampshireandy]

SOU is the only airport where no Flybe flights are on sale for next year. Im still putting money on them relocating to BOH after christmas.

[MARKEYD]

Really cant see that hapening , i think Flybe are holding out with Southampton for better landing deals etc

Bournemouth does not have enough car parking space , arrivals hall would be to small , ramp area only has 12 stands i think , no executive lounge and probably check in area rather to small

[Flitefone]

Mark, the suggestion that Flybe may relocate from SOU. is not without merit, but for many reasons, not least the points you raise, it will not be an all or nothing decision. For instance the Channel Islands routes rely on the link with the train and Fast access to London. SOU has a unique selling proposition here.

However the domestic trunk routes from SOU particularly Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh mostly serve the local market, not those passengers looking for an alternate route to London.

I still think that there is a reasonable prospect that
Flybe will relocate or replicate some of their services that would benefit benefit from being further away from their real competition at LHR and LGW, most likely the domestic trunk routes, as well as Dublin, Amsterdam and Nice. The other Flybe routes attract too much attention from EZY and RYR, clearly there is enough demand at SOU and BOH for the sun routes to operate from both.

Competition for the French Regional Airports is less obvious, it's easy to see these continuing to work well at SOU.

Overall, this is exactly how Exeter operates in relatively close proximity to Bristol.

Time will tell!

FF

[Siggyboy]

Flitefone..do you really think that is a possibility??? As very close to BOH would be very beneficial to me..I can see and understand all the reasons they would not move lock stock and barrel to BOH, but your suggestions are certainly plausible.. BOH's domestic routes have always been done half heartedly with poor timings and lack of frequency so were never going to attract much traffic ( As per Air Lingus now with Dublin). Interesting times..

[Wycombe]

One could maybe forsee a scenario where Flybe expand their domestic and European business-centric routes from SOU, to make up for the loss of the longer sun/leisure routes.

[TCAS FAN]

Wycombe

Any ideas where in Europe, other than past failures? With the underpowered 175s and consequent payload restrictions Scandinavia is out, as is the Baltics. No Spain, regional France covered, Channel Islands saturated, few holidaying in Durham Tees Valley, so where?

[Wycombe]

With an improving economy, I would suggest that some of those destinations tried and withdrawn in the past might be worth another go - the likes of FRA, ZRH, BRU, DUS spring to mind. These should all be close enough for the 175's, or do-able in the Dash with only slightly longer sector times. I am assuming, of course, that suitable slots would be available and that the cost of accessing these airports makes services viable.

It's hard to see what else BEE are going to do at SOU with the 195's gone and no meaningful runway extension possible.

[LTNman]

SOU is the only airport where no Flybe flights are on sale for next year. Im still putting money on them relocating to BOH after christmas.

I think pigs will fly first. Southampton has great public transport links while Bournemouth has none worth talking about. How are inbound passengers without cars to pick them up meant to get anywhere.

[davidjohnson6]

Perhaps MAG could arrange a significant increase in frequency of the bus service between Bournemouth airport and the train station ? Would that make things a little more interesting ?

[LTNman]

Think it was actually cut back this year, anyway it is not a great journey from Bournemouth railway station to the airport with the bus full of shoppers that have been picked up on the way.

[pottwiddler]

To answer a few inaccuracies.
The bus was with one company but is now a Yellow bus and is a direct route to the train station/town centre, gone is the route around the hotels. I'm sure that if there's more demand then capacity will increase. (business agility)

The departures terminal is bigger than Southampton's and was designed to handle up to 3million pax. Not sure about the arrivals. As for a business lounge, I'm sure something can be built within the existing facility.

Car Parking could be difficult though, but I'm sure BOH have plans to create more.

But I can't see it happenning, I'm inclined to think along the same lines Markeyd in that Flybe are holding out for a better deal with Southampton. And I doubt they would be happy to lose their (only) customer.

[TCAS FAN]

Wycombe

"It's hard to see what else BEE are going to do at SOU with the 195's gone and no meaningful runway extension possible"

I second the sentiment, however an extension is possible at the north end but needs land acquisition plus obstacle removal/reduction, and resolution of tree problems at the south end (which I indicated to my then lords and masters in 2000) to have any significant impact on take-off weight increases.

Is there any interest by the airport owners, who by all accounts are trying to off load SOU and other airports in the group?

[Phileas Fogg]

SOU has a 5,653ft runway, it's primary destinations are the CI, both ACI and GCI have lesser length runways so nothing achieved by extending the runway at the SOU end and not t'other end of the route(s), JER has a slightly longer runway but one can operate B737's SOU to JER (I know because we did it) so nothing achieved in extending the runway for JER operations, Eastern Airways hardly need longer than the existing SOU runway and that leaves FlyBE who have various sizes and types of equipment whilst they chop and change their routes, so all they need to do is allocate the appropriate equipment to the appropriate SOU route and everybody lives happily ever after!

[adfly]

Flybe have finally released the rest of their winter schedule from SOU, with the main changes being the continuation of ALC/AGP over the winter and also the introduction of a new route to HAM. I've summarised any changes since my previous post below:

New Routes:

HAM - 7 weekly Q400 from 26/10/2014
LRH - 2 weekly Q400 (Usually only operates in the summer)

Increases:

ALC - 2 weekly E195 (Was due to be dropped)
AGP - 2 weekly E195 As above
LIG - 4 weekly Q400 (3 weekly last year)
RNS - up to 6 weekly (4 weekly last year)

It is good to see Flybe have remained committed to SOU although on the sun routes they have probably lost a few bookings by changing their minds fairly late, there are quite a few people complaining about them on their Facebook page.

I believe quite a few Cruise passengers originate from near Hamburg so I imagine the route has partially been aimed at the market.

[TCAS FAN]

Phileas Fogg

If you check I believe you will find that Jersey's runway is 5597FT (1706m). It was originally slightly longer than SOU. When the SOU runway was laid in 1965 it was 5500 FT (1676m), but was subsequently extended to the north (hence the double turning pad) at the time that land was sold off to the south to facilitate construction of the M27.

[adfly]

Thomson appear to be operating PMI until 1st November, has this also been the case when they have had their own flight?

It also appears every flight over the summer holidays is full or has <5 seats left which is good to see.

[adfly]

Monthly passengers up 4.3% to 176,395 and the rolling year is up 5.1% to 1,767,056. It is looking as though SOU should see some good growth this year and with the continuation of ALC/AGP and new Flybe routes to HAM and LBA/ABZ starting in the winter season we may well see passenger numbers pass the 1.8 million mark again for the full year.

[Newforest2]

City airport put up for sale (From Daily Echo) (http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/11381863.City_airport_put_up_for_sale/?ref=var_0)

For sale!

[Nakata77]

But sounds like it cannot be done in isolation from ABZ and GLA airports....

[Harry O]

I hope its not closed down and the land built on as I like this airport and its a pleasure to use.

Jack Straw MP has praised two councils who objected to a developers proposed land use changes elsewhere in the country.
They had a close call after an expensive 10 year legal battle.
Its a landmark ruling which may affect other building plans in the UK.

Landmark ruling stops Whitebirk shopping complex (From Lancashire Telegraph) (http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/11383379.Landmark_ruling_stops_Whitebirk_shopping_complex/?action=complain&cid=13023700)

[pottwiddler]

I'm not privy to Southampton Airport's accounts but do they make a profit as a single airport?
I ask this as many UK airports in a group relied being in a group where by other airports kept them afloat. I won't mention names.

If Southampton Airport does, then it would be an attractive buy as long as on going investment was minimal, passenger traffic had scope to increase and other streams of income could be explored and acted upon. Then there's the dreaded cost reduction program that would come into things, which we all know isn't nice.

[adfly]

Flybe have started to release their flights for S15, nothing new so far and ALC/AGP/FAO/NCE/PMI are not available.

[insuindi]

The SOU-HAM route appears to have been cancelled for winter, currently bookable from 29MAR14.

[gkmeech]

I was told sometime ago that Flybe Summer Sun flights would not re-appear for 2015. My email to the Chairman a few weeks ago denied any decision had been made, and my emails to Southampton Airport asking them what they were doing to find a new operator always came back with the reply 'we don't know what Flybe are doing'. Maybe I should ask again.

[stewyb]

looks like passenger numbers will once again plummet with the cancellation of the Hamburg route and no return of Flybe Med routes for S15. Surely someone will fill this void?!

[Wycombe]

You would think so, but the options around who can step in will be limited due to the operational constraints of SOU.

[GCILover]

When I used to work at SOU. We used to have a 757 going to PMI and TFS direct. On a Saturday, we used to have 2 x 737's and a 320 all done at the same time doing direct med flights. Surely with that in mind, Easyjet or jet 2 or someone with similar aircraft could operate a few med flights

[Nakata77]

That would be no problem if flybe were not taking up all the apron stands with dash 8-400s! When the 737, 757 and 320 used to operate from SOU it was a much quieter place...

[adfly]

I must say it does seem somewhat erratic of Flybe to cancel the whole winter season's Hamburg flights a week before they were due to begin, not exactly confidence inspiring for passengers.

It is hard to see who will fill the gap left by the sun routes, if Jet2 were to migrate south then they could find a home for the two 733's formerly based in Blackpool but I don't see many other options. Without the E195's there should be room to park 2 738/A320 sized aircraft overnight so that make help matters a little.

[gatwick ghost]

Got an email from flybe giving all the summer 15 blurb but it doesn't show LRH. This seems strange as they are operating it through this winter for the first time. What's happening ?

[davidjohnson6]

Eastern have put on sale a route from Southampton to Lorient in Brittany for 6 different dates in July / August 2015. Anyone know what's behind this rather unusual set up ? Perhaps some aircraft charter which cannot fill all the aircraft ? Alternatively is this some sort of rotation around planned aircraft maintenance ?

Separately, in addition to ghost's post about SOU-LRH not having gone on sale beyon March 2015, the summer only SOU-ClermontFerrand route has also not been released for S15 yet.

[kcockayne]

I have noticed, on FR24 an Eastern Jetstream operating regularly between Lorient & Lyons. Perhaps this creates an "slot" for the aircraft during the day which Eastern think might be utilised by a service to Southampton.

[gkmeech]

I have it on the best authority that in mid-November Flybe will announce 5 times weekly services from SOU to both ALC and PMI through till the end of August 2015. There may also be two other summer sun routes.

[adfly]

Any chance of Nice returning, a few years ago one of the flights was on a Q400 so it is doable on those or an E Jet of some description!?

[adfly]

The following comment from Flybe's facebook page would appear to confirm that the Sun routes will be returning in some form next year, with the information appearing to support what was said by gkmeech.

Gyazo - 9f2d3f52177254e349bb42deaaf65a43.png (http://gyazo.com/9f2d3f52177254e349bb42deaaf65a43)

[StGermain]

:ugh: Adfly - I've read the FB post and it doesn't say that at all. What is says is that they (Flybe) are finalising sun routes, not SOU routes.

[Wycombe]

It does indeed talk about "sun" routes, but those of us who follow Flybe on here will know that in reality what this refers to is the routes out of SOU and EXT to the likes of AGP, ALC, FAO and PMI.

It's already announced that EXT won't have any next year, so by inference I guess SOU is what is being referred to.

[vectisman]

In Summer 2014 they also flew sun routes from Birmingham.


V.

[darren1]

If Flymaybe don't retrun with sun routes in 2015 how about someone like Volotea using SOU as a backdoor entry into the UK? They already operate charters to PMI so the runway shouldn't be too much of a problem. Perhaps the only alternate if BE don't come back to the Med next year.

[vectisman]

darren1
I think the 'Flymaybe' gag has been done to death. For goodness sake move on.




V.

[ThirtyTwentyTen]

darren1
I think the 'Flymaybe' gag has been done to death. For goodness sake move on.

Couldn't agree more! It has not been funny since a) 2006 and b) we were over the age of 9. Nor does it have any basis in fact.

[EGTE]

Last week on the BBC Spotlight South West news programme there was a feature on the first departure for London City from Exeter. The Flybe spokes-lady was asked about the return of the sun routes. Her reply was "Watch this space". Presumably something is afoot!

[gkmeech]

As I have said before the Flybe SOU Summer Sun routes will be announced later this month, but will only run until the end of August 2015.

As for other airlines/aircraft that could use SOU, anyone who flies A319/A320/B757/B737/MD83 could operate. I have flown SOU - PMI A320 with Iberworld, B737 with Air Europa, and B757 with Thomson as well as Flybe E195.

[adfly]

From my readings elsewhere I get the impression that said sun routes may return but possibly be operated by different and larger aircraft, pretty sure I saw a mention of 737's in a post elsewhere, 737 700's would be quite well suited to SOU and Flybe plus they would probably more cost effective to own than the E195's, nice though they were from a passengers perspective. I should emphasise that this post is purely speculation, though.

[Buster the Bear]

Well they did operate 737s once before!

[pottwiddler]

Is it foggy at SOU? I'm seeing a few diverts going into Bournemouth.

[Global_Global]

737 700's would be quite well suited to SOU and Flybe plus they would probably more cost effective to own than the E195's,

Ehh why would you want to operate an aircraft that has a higher seat mile cost and that you don't have in you fleet to do this? :rolleyes:

[adfly]

I was under the impression the E195's were rather expensive to lease, to the point where an A319/737 700 could be leased more cheaply, with the potential for more revenue from the greater capacity possibly enough to offset the higher seat/mile costs. As I emphasised before what I have read seems to mostly be speculation so it is unlikely to happen.

[adfly]

Blue Islands are too drop JER as of 16/11 due to them selling their last two J32's, with the article suggesting the route may be re-instated in the summer if they have enough ATR's by then.

Flybe will now codeshare with Aer Lingus on SOU-DUB meaning there will be onward connections to the likes of JFK, ORD, BOS, MCO, IAD, SFO, YYZ. Combined with the existing KLM codeshare this means there is a decent range of major long haul destinations available via 1 stop connections now ex. SOU.

We should (hopefully) finally hear what will happen with the sun routes this week with Flybe announcing results on Wednesday apparently along with a new base, not to mention the various indications of it being primarily 'mid November' on their Facebook page and elsewhere.

Finally, on a more light hearted note there has been a 250/60m moustache painted onto the grass next to the runway in support of Movember! :)

[stewyb]

This mornings news of a new Flybe base at B'mouth only reiterates the urgency of Soton airport finding an alternative carrier/s asap. The model they have employed for a decade of one airport/one carrier has run its course and as mentioned in a previous post, 2015 could be a bleak year for the airport if alternatives are not sort quick as the sun routes on offer from Flybe will also be to a bare minimum!

[Centre cities]

Is not the greater danger that Flybe sun routes operate from Bournemouth instead without runway restrictions.

Centre cities

[adfly]

That is an interesting point actually, because while they would not have any runway restrictions from BOH they would also be competing head to head with Ryanair, which I can't see even the new and better run Flybe wanting to do. My personal view is that they would probably do better maintaining their monopoly from SOU.

[kcockayne]

With all the new routes & bases being announced, I'm not so sure that this new management is "better management".
Seems like the new management will go the same way as the old & lead the airline into "Boom & Bust" to me.
Does it REALLY know what it's doing ?

[Rivet Joint]

Ok the recent decision by BE to open a base at BOH (albeit with our crews) may be a kick in the teeth I personally see it as suicidal from their point of view.


I have long believed that BE needs SOU more than SOU needs it. With a change of owner and hopefully therefore a future free from being a LHR outpost perhaps this is the motivation SOU needs to wake up and start making the most of its strengths? Investment in new bigger stands and an approach to EZY would be hugely successful in my opinion. SOU has an extremely fertile catchment with money to burn to get to second homes or to visit new places. EZY could make this happen whilst also keep the business crowd happy. Anyone else agree this is win win?

[darren1]

For sure. They operate from SEN which has a similar runway length. BE have run there course at the airport

[GCILover]

BE does not need SOU. SOU has lost them mega bucks due to their rediculous charges. They have already said to SOU "Drop your charges or we pull out" what's to say this isn't the beginning of that

[adfly]

Rivet Joint - Your constant bashing of BOH on here is getting a little tiring, yes there is of course a notable element of risk starting a base 30 miles from one of BE's largest (been overtaken by BHX in the last year or so) bases where they essentially have a monopoly. However equally I'd have some confidence in Flybe's current management, which a lot of previous experience coming from Easyjet, not exactly an airline known for cocking things up on a regular basis.

As for the whole 'no one wants to fly from BOH they should just make it a housing estate' that is frankly rubbish, because despite a smaller catchment and significantly worse transport links than SOU it has still managed to attract ~650,000 pax per year, not to mention the notable number of non passenger business's operating from the airport (i.e. cobham, paintshop, scrappers, based light aircraft etc). It also has a far more useful runway length, and can handle more than 2 A320 sized aircraft at any one time!

As for previous failed ventures most have fallen into two categories, unknown/not established operator or an inappropriate frequency/aircraft type (i.e. BE's middle of the day MAN, SI 3x week to JER vs 3x day up the road, FR using 738's to PIK etc).

With a bit of luck both airports will benefit from this move, with BOH being able to broaden their routes beyond the bog standard bucket and spade ones and SOU getting a kick up the rear to reduce charges/improve the airfield/not be so reliant on Flybe.

[Rivet Joint]

GCILover: I totally agree. It does smack of BE teaching SOU a lesson like they were clearly doing last time they operated a few routes from BOH. This time the base is more substantial however and I can only see one long term loser and that's BE. Saying that I fully expect the BOH venture to not last long just like last time. SOU is soon to get new owners (well sort of) and lets hope without LHR being a stable mate they will start to invest airside to facilitate some much needed competition.

adfly: I'll admit I had a lot of faith in the new management who appeared to be going back to basics and consolidating nicely on what they know works. More codesharing is also a wise move. Yu can't tell me however that opening a base at the likes of STN and BOH is not going against this course of action however?

I admit my housing plan might be a bit over the top (at least for now) however with the Irish lot charging a few euros and a bag of crisps for a flight to Greece 650,000 is not all that surprising. I think its well established that FR are not fully committed to BOH and it does beg the question why? I don't want to go back to poundland again but if they can't make money in a town centre then no one can. Non passenger business is kind of a non point to me, Manston, Blackpool etc all had this yet closed. Granted it has a longer runway but so does Doncaster.

You have to ask why BI chose to ditch BOH to fly the same routes as BE at SOU?

I do not see how this will benefit either airport. Granted you are right SOU needs a kick up the rear but BOH has no business serving domestic routes and as previously mentioned if FR can't make it work then BE have no chance. Time will tell though.

[Nakata77]

why is the Flybe mobile website only showing flights on its network on sale till April 2015?

[davidjohnson6]

Can we now conclude that routes from Southampton to Brest, Clermont-Ferrand and La Rochelle will not be flown for summer 2015 ?

[BOHEuropean]

The remainder of the Southampton summer schedule, including "sunshine routes" will be announced in the next week, the date according to the airlines Facebook page is Saturday 15th

[Fairdealfrank]

I do not see how this will benefit either airport. Granted you are right SOU needs a kick up the rear but BOH has no business serving domestic routes and as previously mentioned if FR can't make it work then BE have no chance. Time will tell though.


Not necessarily, BE can get onto thinner routes than FR because of its use of smaller aircraft.

[pottwiddler]

Rivet Joint is so in denial it's laughable. Can'the/she ever be happy that another airport has had a significant success in attracting another airline thereby securing peoples jobs and livelyhoods at that airport?

So what if it's not a 'proper' base?

fliteFone wrote an excellent piece on how Flybe flying from BOH AND SOU could be of benefit to both.

We all know that people are making the journey past BOH to SOU to get on a Flybe flight. So it only makes sense for Flybe to meet the customers needs. Isn't that what business is all about?

[Sharklet_321]

Totally agreed pottwiddler.

Flybe are in a tricky spot at SOU not able to base any more aircraft than are currently there. Look at the schedules from BOH - they are complementary. If SOU has a good catchment, then facilitating additional services in terms of GROWTH from the South coast should be no issue!

[Charlie Roy]

Romanians vote in their country's presidential election... in PORTSMOUTH | Daily Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2836772/Thousands-Romanian-immigrants-queue-block-Portsmouth-vote-country-s-presidential-election.html)

If I was Southampton Airport, I'd be emailing this article to Wizz Air first thing Monday morning.

[GCILover]

Why can't Flybe base anymore aircraft there. When I worked there they had 10 nightstoppers. 3 x 195 and 7 x dash 8. SOU has 14 stands so plenty of room for more

[pottwiddler]

Romanians vote in their country's presidential election... in PORTSMOUTH | Daily Mail Online

If I was Southampton Airport, I'd be emailing this article to Wizz Air first thing Monday morning.

Can a 737 make it to Romania from SOU with its runway?

Why can't Flybe base anymore aircraft there. When I worked there they had 10 nightstoppers. 3 x 195 and 7 x dash 8. SOU has 14 stands so plenty of room for more

I'm not sure either but probably has four other aircraft parked there! SOU can't be seen to be exclusively Flybe. ;)

[yeo valley]

wizz air do not operate b737. they operate the a320.

[Ian Brooks]

Probably thinking of Blue Air with B737s

Ian

[pottwiddler]

Apologies, early Monday Morning and I've not had my coffee, I'll ask the question again.

Can an A320 operate from SOU to Romania?

[TCAS FAN]

potwiddler

Not with an economic passenger load.

[Sharklet_321]

Flybe saw significant growth on some key routes from Southampton:

Dublin up 54% on last October
Amsterdam up 31% on last October
Manchester up 35% on last October
Jersey up 15% on last October (was any of this growth due to Blue Islands?)

Makes sense that they are now considering the routes above from BOH as obviously the market (South Coast) can take it/needs it.

[pottwiddler]

Those are impressively big numbers and great news for SOU, any reason why?

[adfly]

Finally they appear to be bookable!

Alicante - Daily
Malaga - Daily
Faro - 6 weekly (Mon-Sat)
Palma - 6 weekly (No Thurs)
La Rochelle - 4 weekly (Tue/Thurs/Sat/Sun)
Brest - 4 weekly (Tue/Thurs/Sat/Sun) - Only appears to operate over the summer holidays.

Bastia (New!) - 2 weekly (Thurs/Sun)
Milan (New!) - 3 weekly (Weds/Sat/Sun) - Seems like an unusual schedule?

Nice appears to have been dropped (though has been half replaced by BOH - Toulon) and Clermont-Ferrand is also gone.

The Spanish/Portuguese routes along with Bastia are operated by E195's, the rest are on Q400's.

[hampshireandy]

When do the Milan flights start from?

[NickBarnes]

16th May 2015

[hampshireandy]

Awful return flight time, arr SOU 2230! Could they not get a better slot than that? And why are they showing as 4 seats left on a date in June, no way have 70 odd seats sold since the route was announced. A cynical ploy no doubt by flybe to make you hurry up and book before the price, supposedly increases?

[Wycombe]

.....or of course there could be a block booking for a tour operator (which may be the main reason for the route being started), with just a few seats left to sell to others. I think the SOU-VRN route originally started as a charter (presumably for similar reasons) before becoming a scheduled route.

The above is purely conjecture on my part.

On the wider subject of the "sun routes", adfly's info above suggests 28 rotations per week on the 195, which sounds like just about enough to keep 2 airframes going?

[Expressflight]

The '4 seats left' caption refers to seats being available at that price. As soon as they have been sold the price will increase and that caption will only appear again once 4 seats remain unsold at the new price and so on.

[hampshireandy]

So the statement '4 seats left' is clearly a cynical and dishonest lie then. It should read '4 seats left at this price'

Isnt it ironic how people slag off Ryanair for their misleading info on their website but at least they state 'x seats left at this fare'

Trading standards anyone?

[davidjohnson6]

andy - I think Trading Standards with their limited staff and budgets have bigger things to spend their time on than this. Flybe are a commercial company and in visiting their website, you should expect strong encouragement to buy their products.

As with any matter in law where you feel someone else is breaking the law, you are of course welcome to initiate a private prosecution through the courts at your own cost if you feel strongly over this.

[adfly]

Wycombe - I expect so, EXT has 14 flight per week on 1 E195, though most likely there could be a rotation to DUB/AMS in between if there is room in the schedules like in previous years. I wonder if SOU will ever see any of the E175's permanently based ( I am aware there is one based as we speak) to operate the most popular domestic and European routes?

[hampshireandy]

So how would you feel if you hurriedly booked a flight because it was showing 4 seats left, only to check the website a few days later to see that not only were there 'another' 4 seats left, but that the price may have gone down?

It's misleading at best, dishonest at worst and one of the reasons why in the last couple of years and in the future Flybe will not get a penny from me.

[GCILover]

So they are very quick to blame the runway length for a lack of choice of destinations. I've just read an article on Skiathos airport which has a runway that is approx 300ft shorter than SOU. Perhaps it's time to stop blaming the runway and sort out the stands to accommodate the types of aircraft that could offer a much better choice of destinations. It even states that a 767-200 was used on a flight from Milan. Imagine seeing one of those coming in over the M27

[destinationsky]

Skiathos this doesn't have a hill at the end of the runway which has an effect on aircraft performance and load factors.

[Cloud1]

Hampshireandy - seriously?? Have you never used a low cost airline before? Their websites tend to be much the same.

Any if there are 4 seats at a particular price, you take them, the price will go up to the next fare class available - not down. So your theory doesn't apply.

Get over it, have a drink. Now is not the season to be getting stressed over airline websites 🎄

[TSR2]

Any if there are 4 seats at a particular price, you take them, the price will go up to the next fare class available - not down. So your theory doesn't apply.

Wrong. That is exactly what happened to me last year with a market leading loco airline.

Only 7 seats left at this price (£22.49). Seven days later, only 7 seats left at this price (£15.49). So the price can actually come down.

[hampshireandy]

Cloud1 it sounds like youre the one who has never flown low-cost, and are you seriously calling Flybe a low cost airline?! They are the worst of both worlds, neither low cost or full service. As i stated in my post even Ryanair has a fundamental and clear difference in their 'number of seats left' policy.

[adfly]

Austrian appear to have used A319's on one/some of the INN charters, hopefully that is an indication the route is proving popular, I believe it is usually flown by F100's. Since there is so little happening (which could be seen as good & bad) at SOU I thought this would be worth posting!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/b752/16184491631
Credit to 'B752' for the photo.

[Cloud1]

TSR2 - sometimes if a booking is cancelled the fares will automatically be released for sale. So if someone booked the £15 tickets and then cancelled they would go back out for sale at that price unless it's on the day if departure (IE no show) It doesn't happen too often when you compare it to the number of bookings made online each day but explains why occasionally it may occur.

I should have covered this in small print - doesn't happen often that's why I omitted it. However it's not an intentional ploy to deceive customers as hampshireandy was suggesting with the wording of his post.

Hampshireandy - if Flybe are that bad why book a flight with them?

Good news on the A319 gives a bit of variety again for the ramp staff

[anne747380]

I live near Southampton Airport and have notized the absence of the Flybe Embraer jets as they usually fly over my garden.Have they left Southampton Airport?

[adfly]

anne747380 - I suspect they have been moved elsewhere/into storage while ALC/AGP take their mid winter break as in previous years. As soon as they restart (some when in Feb I believe) I'd expect them to return.

According to the CAA provisional stats SOU handled 1,829,685 passengers in 2014, which is a healthy 6.2% increase on 2013 and the highest since 2007, although 2005-2007 saw higher numbers. So all in all SOU has been pretty static in terms of passenger numbers in the last 10 or so years, incidentally the master plan put together in 2003 said they expected 3 million passengers per year by 2015! While I can't see that happening any time soon if Flybe remain committed to its base and *somebody* operates the sun routes after the E195's leave I expect SOU could pass the 2 million mark in the next couple of years.

Monthly passengers were up by an impressive 14.5% compared to last December.

[canberra97]

I think it would create a great opportunity for British Midland Regional to set up a base at Southampton especially as they are working closely with Lufthansa and code sharing on several German routes mainly from Munich.

British Midland are on expansion mode at present and have the suitable aircraft in the EMB 135 for ex SOU. Although not a member of Star Alliance British Midland Regional could offer great connections from Southampton to the following hubs such as

Brussels
Copenhagen
Frankfurt
Munich
Zurich

I can't see Flybe serving such markets having tried and failed previously but surely there is local demand for such routes.

The new owners of SOU should be able to secure at least a few of these destinations and possible new airlines as long as they sort out the current apron stand situation.

Other options could be the return of

Vueling to BCN and possibly other Spanish destinations
Aer Lingus Regional to ORK
Air France to Paris CDG
KLM to AMS

And maybe

Air Nostrum 'Iberia Regional' to MAD

[cornishsimon]

I can also see the once sold but never flown NQY-SOU getting a try maybe in 16


cs

[davidjohnson6]

Is Southampton sufficiently far from Newquay in terms of both distance and time, to be able to justify commercially an air link in competition to the car ?

Not saying it can't work, just that Newquay-Southampton is about 60 miles fewer or an hour's less driving than Newquay-London.

[cornishsimon]

Possibly, possibly not
When BE tried last time it was just after they bought BACON and they put the ERJ on it, well then decided to ditch it before flying it.

Might work a couple times a week to cater to the eldery retired cruise market.


cs

[adfly]

Some interesting comments, NQY could probably work a couple of times per week in the Summer, if timed right it could be useful for some inbound cruise passengers and outbound leisure travel (driving down to Cornwall in the Summer is a very slow journey so the option of flying down there in an hour could be quite appealing to some).

I have to agree that BMI regional would indeed be a good candidate to serve some business oriented European routes from SOU on their E135/145's.

Aer Lingus regional to Cork would be a logical addition to cater for the notable Irish population in the area.

Vueling would probably only work if Flybe were to drop the sun routes next year then they were to come in and 'save' them, which would hopefully generate them plenty of publicity. Of course it would be good to deal with the parking issue beforehand, but for a small operation they could try and mark out 2 larger stands across the existing stands 2-5 meaning 2 A320/738 sized aircraft could be handled at once.

KLM do effectively serve Flybe via codeshare so I would not expect this to change any time soon, though I expect AMS will eventually increase to 4 daily year round considering it has seen good increases in passenger numbers all year.

Air France to CDG would probably not add much to SOU, since KLM offer connections everywhere and Flybe's ORY service caters for the Paris market as well as some onwards domestic/French territories connections. HOP! could look at LYS & NCE I guess?

Iberia Regional would be a long shot, but could be possible if they decide to expand their UK presence in the future. What would a CRJ900 be like performance wise off of SOU's runway?

Finally I have mentioned it before but SOU fits well with Volotea in the sense that it fits their business model of avoiding competition from the main LCC's and the 717 is quite a good fit for SOU from both a runway performance and physical dimensions point of view.:)

[canberra97]

Adfly

I completely forgot about Volotea and I agree they would be an ideal airline for SOU for the reasons you state, the same applies to HOP.

With regard to Air France to CDG I was thinking this could be in addition to the current Flybe connection to Paris Orly, CDG offers more world wide connections and Air France could still code share on the route with Flybe.

The same goes with Amsterdam, added frequency could be with KLM offering additional flights again with the Flybe code share.

There is so much potential for SOU as regards to new links but the previous owners were too happy to have concentrated on Flybe and there operations but with them shortly opening a base at BOH and the potential loss of the sun routes the management at SOU have to really consider their options as to what direction the airport is taking!

[adfly]

Little bit of good news for next winter on the airport's facebook page, there is going to be 4 santa flights, which is a significant increase on the one in previous years.

They appear to be as follows:

8th December - 2 night break with Santa's Lapland (Appears to have Jet 2 flight numbers)
12th December - Day trip with Transun
20th December - Day trip with Canterbury Travel
21st December - Day trip with Canterbury Travel

Also, Thomas Cook are selling holidays to Palma for this summer using the scheduled Flybe flights, although there is no sign of them selling holidays to Faro and Verona with the same arrangement like they have done in previously.

[Sharklet_321]

Adfly,

KLM city hopper used to fly from SOU with S f-340's
Air France used to fly 2 or 3 times daily to CDG with ATR-42's
British Airways Regional tried Frankfurt and Munich with ERJ-145's
I think even SABENA operated at some point to BRU with Dash eqp
Aer Aran flew to cork with ATR-72 for a number of seasons before that was stopped
Skybus has also tried and failed with its Twin Otter to Scilly

I don't hold out much hope of the same airlines returning on the very routes that didn't work for them.

However I do agree that BMI regional would be an interesting trial as you mentioned

[NewquayJacob]

According to Flightradar, it looks like the sun routes this weekend are to be operated by the E175.

[adfly]

I could be reading into it too much but I wonder if that will be a sort of 'trial', to see if flying the sun routes on the E175 in the future is a viable option?

[NewquayJacob]

G-FBJK has just departed to AGP.

Maybe in 2016, the sun routes may be operated by E175. What would the runway performance be like especially to FAO/AGP?

[canberra97]

Sharklet 321

British Airways only flew to Frankfurt never Munich, there other European routes from Southampton were to Brussels, Paris and Zurich all using Embraer 145 aircraft.

Sabena never flew the Southampton to Brussels route, when British Airways stopped there Brussels flights they were taken up by the Belgian airline VLM Airlines using a F-50.

Air France flew to Paris CDG from 1986 up till about 6 years ago using a mixture of ATR 42/72 and CRJs.

KLM City Hopper and before that Netherlines used Saab 340s to Amsterdam which later became F-50s, when KLM took over Air UK the route was flown with F-100s.

Aer Arran operated to Cork with ATR42/72.

Air Berlin operated to Paderborn in Germany with Boeing 737-800.

Amongst scheduled European airlines we also used to get regular charters with Air Malta to Malta using Boeing 737.

We could do with more choice at SOU that's for sure!

[adfly]

Passengers up over 15% compared to last Jan as per the CAA provisional stats, which is very impressive. Lets hope this growth continues throughout the year!

[Sharklet_321]

What's powering this growth?

[OltonPete]

Sharklet_321

For January probably cheap seats on flybe.

Purple Wednesday with flights at £15 would have helped.

Lets have a look at other flybe bases for January: -

Birmingham - record January pax up 11.4% (12 based aircraft)

Exeter - up 32%

Non-bases but flybe growth

London City - +23/9%

EMA - added nearly 5000 pax on least years routes (not counting CDG canx)

Pete

[adfly]

It seems now Thomas Cook are also selling holidays to Faro and Verona alongside the already mentioned Palma as per last year, using the scheduled Flybe flights.

Thomson are doing the same for Alicante and Malaga and their lakes & mountains division are selling holidays using the Milan and Verona flights. This is in addition to the weekly Volotea flight to PMI. So although there is nothing new flight wise Thomson now serve a far wider range of destinations from SOU than they have in quite a few years.

Flybe are also chopping the ABZ end of their flyshuttle route at the end of this month but the LBA-SOU-JER section shall remain. I suspect the slow start was further hampered but lower oil prices. On the plus side the reduces the chance of Eastern dropping the as a result of Flybe dumping it with cheap seats.

[adfly]

SOU handled 128,207 this Feb, up an impressive 21.2% on last year. A brief skim through the CAA stats shows some very impressive increases across the board for domestic routes and some good ones on international routes. Considering the frequencies of most flights aren't significantly different from last year it must be a case of significantly improved load factors.

[Groundloop]

Feb 2014 had some pretty bad weather - remember Dawlish. Could have been quite a few cancellations. Just looking at total Pax numbers can be misleading.

[78Whiskey]

Southampton showing up in the VLM booking system with flights to Antwerp & Hamburg.

[Sharklet_321]

Very impressive performance but it doesn't surprise me as the new directive from Flybe is to generate better load factors through more consistently lower fares. This was only really seen filtered through in the last few months. Having said that the total number of flights operated were up 15% too so Groundloop comment above also well made.

No reason why SOU can't handle 3-4m pax per year especially with LHR constraints till 3rd runway.

[adfly]

Both routes appear to be 6 weekly (not Sat) with Antwerp starting on 8th June and Hamburg on 15th June. If it all goes ahead I wish them the best of luck!

[Sharklet_321]

Isn't Hamburg via Antwerp? They both have the same arrival time into Southampton. Hope it works - SOU needs more airline choice for sure.

[adfly]

It would seem so taking a closer look. the website has been updated with the route being advertised & on the route map. Odd that Hamburg is advertised as a route even when there is a 7 hour (!) total duration getting there which is rather off putting! 3hrs 25 on the way back is not too bad but those timings could do with some tweaking, the route starts on 23rd April and appears to be 5 weekly Mon-Fri.

[Rivet Joint]

Great news to see a new airline seeing the potential at Southampton. It really is perfectly set up for business pax and these routes will also tap into the cruise industry.

The figures do not surprise me either. The south is one of the most affluent area in England so holidays/business is always on the agenda but the costs have to be proportionate. Looks like BE are finally realising that if you give a little you will get a lot in return. Why they want to dilute these figures by operating at that shower down the road is anyone's guess.

[MARKEYD]

Good news for Southampton with VLM and good to finally see a few more carriers with some different destinations that have been needed for quite a few years now

Hope the Hamburg route is sucessful as been on the cards then off for a fair few years , but with the right price and times should be a winner

As for the last posters comments as usual a big " Yawn " from most readers …

[Rivet Joint]

Funny how you saw fit to comment on my post Markeyd?

Let's take the bias out of proceedings. Some quick facts:

SOU 128k pax and a 21% increase last month;

BOH 20k pax and down 11% in same month.

Not sure what your background is markeyd, but you don't have to be Bill Gates to have the business acumen to decide which horse to back.

That's before we even get to talking about infrastructure and usability which BOH at best could only match SOU. That's after BOH had a motorway and train line/station built on it's doorstep, a few 100 million might get the ball rolling I suppose. Looking at close to a billion though.

Oh and yes of course the few hundred cruise passengers would love a small detour to BOH not to mention the rest of us who would quite happily fly to MAN from SOU and then back to BOH on the way back. Why not, it is perfectly logical.

If anyone can present a case for BE operating at BOH whilst it has the SOU monopoly in it's back pocket I am all ears. More than happy to hold my hands up if you can convince me.

[EI-BUD]

I have to say all of this expansion by Flybe feels very 'Eurodirect', if anybody can remember this fast growing regional airline that was big in the South and Southwest of England in the 1990's.

That said they had impressive stats for FEB. Perhaps the more BE way is working....

[Flitefone]

For those struggling to understand Flybe strategy, the airline management set it out clearly in a capital markets day in November.

http://www.flybe.com/corporate/investors/pdf/2014/Flybe-Capital-Markets-Day-28-November-2014.pdf

[pottwiddler]

Rivet Joint, to quote Markeyd

YAWN! :E

See Flitefone's link and read this bit

• UK infill
 Return to Aberdeen, creating up to 100 jobs
 Bournemouth to complement/back-up Southampton

Do you have shares in Flybe/Southampton Airport or land speculation in Bournemouth and hoping for closure, I'm really can't see why you're so anti-BOH

[Nextprop]

That said they had impressive stats for FEB. Perhaps the more BE way is working....

That's a direct consequence of a shift to a sales max strategy and has been apparent across Flybe's entire network. Average fares will have been lower, so I wouldn't read too much into the increase in passenger numbers.

[Nakata77]

SOU and BOH should try to work together to complement each other. They should try and co-ordinate some sort of policy where business or high frequency routes go to SOU and leisure/LCC/longer haul services go to BOH. Wouldn't that help both airports in the longer run? To approach airlines as two partners rather than competing for finite passengers within a tiny catchment area dwarfed by LHR just 60-90 mins away!

[Sharklet_321]

Euro-Direct-Airlines, that's a blast from the past. They made ridiculous choices towards the end of their existence such as single routes from LGW and unknown forays into mainland Europe - Kortrijk in Belgium for example. I think they also did a bizarre Exeter to. Bournemouth shuttle service almost hourly at peak times. It lead to their downfall.

Similar route behaviour at Flybe (not as crazy I would say) but they have more strength with improved cash-flow and reduced costs and complexity.

[davidjohnson6]

Nakata - SOU and BOH are owned by different commercial companies. Explicitly working together risks accusations of acting as a cartel and a trip to court.

[BAladdy]

It would seem so taking a closer look. the website has been updated with the route being advertised & on the route map. Odd that Hamburg is advertised as a route even when there is a 7 hour (!) total duration getting there which is rather off putting! 3hrs 25 on the way back is not too bad but those timings could do with some tweaking, the route starts on 23rd April and appears to be 5 weekly Mon-Fri.

You are right the timings could do with a bit of a tweaking. Below is the schedule for VG's HAM via ANR service.

VG162 HAM 09:05 ANRa 10:35/ANRd 11:05 SOU 11:30 x67

VG163 SOU 12:00 ANRa 14:25/ANRd 18:30 HAM 20:00 x67

The 4hr 5 min transit time in ANR on flights ex SOU seems very excessive. Especially with the limited facilities available at ANR airport

[EI-BUD]

Sharklet321,

You are right EI-BUD was in fact a Boeing 733!!!

Nakata,

Your suggestion of collaboration sounds nice, but I'd suggest SOU would have more to loose here. They'd like the business to themselves and it would seem BOH has posed little threat to SOU hitherto.

BE has been at BOH before and recently enough tested BOH MAN, without Satisfaction. Some will argue now that costs are lower, therefore routes may be viable. As I see it, BE have dived into this and it is to say the least a risky strategy...

EI-BUD

[virginblue]

Wondering why they don't let the Fokker 50 sit on the ground at SOU until 3:30 pm - no apron space at SOU even during that off-peak hours? As VLM only operates one other route fron ANR, it is not as if they would need the Fokker 50 at ANR earlier. Only explanation I can think of is crew hours. But the schedule simply ruins any chance of HAM travellers - 7 hours travel time is excessive given competing nonstop HAM services from LGW, LHR, LTN and LCY.

[BAladdy]

Wondering why they don't let the Fokker 50 sit on the ground at SOU until 3:30 pm - no apron space at SOU even during that off-peak hours? As VLM only operates one other route fron ANR, it is not as if they would need the Fokker 50 at ANR earlier. Only explanation I can think of is crew hours. But the schedule simply ruins any chance of HAM travellers - 7 hours travel time is excessive given competing nonstop HAM services from LGW, LHR, LTN and LCY.
Have checked and VG will operate 2 F50's ex ANR for there own services and 2 aircraft on behalf of WX to LCY.
Meaning that as things stand the aircraft will remain there for the duration of the transit

Would there be a market for flights to RTM or BRU from SOU. VG could operate a 12:00 departure to RTM or BRU arriving back in SOU at 15:00.

Then the HAM could depart SOU at about 15:30 and arrive in ANR at about 18:00. meaning the aircraft would only then have 30 mins on the ground before flying off to HAM.

[MattBAe146]

Finally I have mentioned it before but SOU fits well with Volotea in the sense that it fits their business model of avoiding competition from the main LCC's and the 717 is quite a good fit for SOU from both a runway performance and physical dimensions point of view.:)As much as I'd love to see this, believe me I've heard it from a credible source and it's not going to happen any time soon.

Also I've heard that there is also a small change this year to the SOU-PMI operations, the 717s flying for Thomson will no longer be NTE or BOD based and will instead be operated by the aircraft based at OVD, so it will now be OVD-PMI-SOU-PMI-OVD :)

[Sharklet_321]

Is there space at SOU for a 4 or 5 aircraft LCC base? Something like EasyJet A319's to give competition to Flybe on JER, GLA, EDI, NCL, BFS, AMS, CDG, NCE, BCN, VCE, INN, SZG, PRG, BER, CGN, MUC. Etc...

Would there be payload penalties - given SOU runway length - on those routes?

[Rivet Joint]

You would think so Sharklet but unfortunately a LCC operation cannot even be considered at SOU in it's current form. They foolishly sold of part of their prime apron space to Royal Mail who built a depot (yes this really happened) on it. This depot could have been built on any number of the surrounding industrial estates but welcome to SOU airport. The airport of low aspirations. Investment involves setting aside a few thousand pounds for a lounge/toilet refresh every 3 years and that's it. Despite now having new owners it looks like they are going to be no better than BAA treating SOU as a pot to hold some money in. They could quite easily build some new stands in the north east of the airport (part of their master plan) but still noting 10 years down the line.

BOH on the other hand had a new terminal/instrument landing system off the back of a couple of flights a day. You have to speculate to accumulate as they say and unfortunately I do not see that happening at SOU. They have always been in the hands of investment portfolios rather than someone like the Manchester airport group who want to run successful airports.

[TCAS FAN]

Rivet Joint

The airport operator never sold the Royal Mail building site, they never bought it.

When the complete site was purchased from Nat Somers by Gazeley Developments it was broken into three sections. First was that now housing Royal Mail, Mercedes, Premier Inn etc, the present airport site, and the area to the NE in vicinity of the "SAM" VOR (when I was a lad runway10/28).

When BAA bought the current site they initially chose not to buy either of the other two sections. They subsequently purchased the NE corner when Gazeleys worked out it would be a nightmare to develop due to access problems to the site. Subsequently along came the Airport Master Plan with the intent to site their new Terminal Building in the NE corner, having missed the boat with the obvious site for it!

[NewquayJacob]

Flybe flight to ALC looks to be operated by the Dash 8 tomorrow - flight time 3hrs+...

[adfly]

That is a bit of a trek! The E195 appears to be going to GVA in the morning then AGP later on, I assume the former has a lot of people booked on it and there has been a swap of aircraft. Either that or Flybe are short on Embraers at the moment as 2 have been based in SOU for pretty much the whole winter season (Usually 1 E195 and 1 E175).

[adfly]

Flybe have applied to serve SOU-LYS and SOU-MUC from next April via the regional connectivity fund. Both are planned to be operated double daily on weekdays and once on weekends, so 12 weekly for each in total. Lets hope it all works out for them!

Information comes from SWBKCB's post on the Flybe thread.

[BAladdy]

VG162 HAM 09:05 ANRa 10:35/ANRd 11:05 SOU 11:30 x67
VG163 SOU 12:00 ANRa 14:25/ANRd 18:30 HAM 20:00 x67
As expected VG have made changes to there SOU-ANR-HAM leg of there new route. I wonder if the aircraft will just remain parked at SOU or are VG about to announce another route from SOU?
Schedule now showing:

VG162 HAM 09:05 ANRa 10:35 ANRd 11:05 SOU 11:30 F50 x67
VG163 SOU 15:05 ANRa 17:30 ANRd 18:30 HAM 20:00 F50 x67

[Avnu]

A much more attractive schedule indeed. I'm pretty sure they'll just leave the plane at SOU because there isn't much they can do inbetween. Even with 30 minute turnaround times everywhere, the best they can do is a 1 hour flight each way. That doesn't get you very far in the lovely but slow F50.

That being said, SOU to LEH is only 117 miles. So if they really want to connect the major European ports, they might as well add that one to the list.

[adfly]

The early release of S16 by Thomson shows that PMI will return next year with Volotea and a Tuesday flight will be added, bringing the frequency to twice weekly. It is worth pointing out that the Tuesday flight does not yet have a confirmed flight number, although it does have times and appear to be bookable.

In addition, VLM start today, does anyone have any indication of how bookings are looking for the route?

[MARKEYD]

Total Ski are operating to Chambery next winter and are using a new carrier to Southampton , Germania will be operating the route from Dec 15 to March 16 on a Sunday 1210 - 1330 more than likely using an A319 or Boeing 737 700

Austrian Airlines also rteturn on a Saturday to Innsbruck with Inghams Ski not sure what aircraft type at the moment

Flybe should start to release there winter flights from the second week in June so remains to be seen how many ski flights they will be offering , also to be seen if Bournemouth will share some of there ski routes as well

[adfly]

Good to see an extra Ski charter next winter, hopefully this will help fill any drops in capacity at the weekends if the E195's go this winter. Indeed it seems very slowly SOU's charter schedule is increasing, firstly TOM using their own (i.e. a whole plane rather than selling seats on Flybe) flight to PMI and Austrian to INN and now Germania to CMF and Thomson increasing to twice weekly next year.

Although it is not representative of the route overall if you search 'southampton airport' on Flickr you can find some pictures apparently taken on 28th April showning just 3 people on a flight from Antwerp to Southampton. I do hope this is a one off!

[adfly]

Passengers down 1.4% in April but up 7.5% for the rolling year so far, looking as if the airport will pass the 1.9 million mark this calender year assuming this sort of growth continues. I expect the decrease last month was down to the different timing of Easter compared to last year.

Only 22 people flew between Southampton and Antwerp in the 6 days the route operated in April which is pretty terrible, although a further 52 flew between Southampton and Hamburg. I do hope the forward bookings are better or this route is not going to last long. There doesn't seem to be all that much in the way of advertising for the route either I have to say.

There was also some good growth across the sun routes, it is a shame that their future seems uncertain.

[adfly]

Flybe are using a Q400 on tomorrows Palma flight, and indeed the rest of the summer according to their timetable. 2 Hour 55 Minute flight duration, wonder if they are testing the water to see if the sun routes are viable on Q400's once the E195's leave the fleet? Having said that I can't imagine FAO/AGP would ever work on them. The E195 seems to do two runs to Amsterdam instead if FR24 is correct (at least for now anyway)

[stab3.5up]

Oh that will be a pleasure If you tall !!

[Lord Spandex Masher]

They tried the Q on EXT - FAO or AGP a few years ago.

Once.

[kcockayne]

I think I'm correct in saying that BEE used a DH8 on a series of flights between Jersey & Palma. I don't think that they had any complaints or operational problems.
Perhaps it's all down to what you are used to !

[Tonyq]

They certainly used the Q400 from IOM to the Balearics for several seasons and it seemed to work well enough. Capacity was well matched to the market, and an extra hour or so in the air was an attractive option to transiting a UK airport, with added costs.

[adfly]

Of course the main difference if the JER/GCI/IOM flights had no close competition. With SOU if people decide they want a shorter flight to Spain/Portugal then they can head to BOH or LGW/LHR instead. Will be interesting to see how this goes as it is down to be a Q400 even over the summer holidays, which I have to say does not make a lot of sense to me...

[kcockayne]

Adfly

Very true !

[pottwiddler]

Whilst I agree with adfly, it is refreshing to see airlines experimenting with routes after all the risk aversion of surviving the recession.

[adfly]

Absolutely, I'd much rather see the sun routes continued on a Q400 than dropped entirely when the E195's go. There is obviously money to be made from them as they have been operated for over 12 years! According to FR24 the actual flight duration is looking to be around 2 hrs 15 mins, so allowing for some padding if Flybe set the block times to be say 2 hrs 30-40 mins then the perceivable difference between that and the block times for a jet (usually 2 hrs 10-20 mins) would be fairly negligible.

[TCAS FAN]

I'd go for the Q400 SOU/PMI. Reminds me of when my (then) girlfriend used to fly out from SOU to see me on a BMA Viscount, 3+ hours en-route. Longish flight but trust me it was always well worth the wait!

[adfly]

Flybe seem to be using an E175 in place of one of the E195's on the sun routes at the moment, as I believe the latter went tech in FAO recently. The E175 seems to be having no issues doing SOU-ALC/AGP/FAO non stop.

[Flitefone]

The 175 made at least two of the SOU rotations via BOH (AGP & FAO) for some reason in the past couple of days - runway performance?

[adfly]

Maybe I jumped the gun a little then, although I think it managed SOU-AGP direct during the winter, but temperature and higher loads probably don't help matters. Of course if the new owners got to work on the starter strip referred to in the master plan and also mentioned in the press up more recently then this would most likely not be an issue.

[adfly]

Flybe have done a 'partial release' of their winter schedule today. So far SOU is a mixture of 'same old' and also a little disappointing, although final judgements will be reserved until the full schedule is out.

Currently the sun routes appear to finish at the end of October, although it is worth noting that CWL-FAO appears to be operating over the winter, so this would suggest that there will still be E195's available.

Amsterdam/Dublin don't appear to be getting any extra flights over the winter, as they have in the last couple of years. Given the limited frequencies on both routes at BOH I very much doubt that has affected numbers much. Both remain at ~3 daily.

Belfast City has been reduced from ~3 daily to ~2.

As for ski routes so far we have Chambery 3 weekly (2x Sat 1 Sun) and Geneva 4 weekly (2x Sat 2x Sun). No sign of Grenoble of Salzburg as of yet.

Leeds appears to be dropped (again!).

Paris is down to just ~2 daily as well as it has been this summer, which is disappointing when you consider that 5 years ago when the economy was in a far worse state there were 5 daily flights to Paris (3 daily Air France ATR42 to Orly and 2 daily Flybe Q400 to CDG).

[GCILover]

Also no GCI flights showing with Flybe as of you for the winter. This may change with the full release but think this was innevitable

[adfly]

A further disappointment with Flybe's current winter schedule is that the regional french routes (Limoges, Nantes, Bergerac, Rennes, La Rochelle) are only operating over the Xmas/New Year period currently so they have all effectively become seasonal routes, despite most being operated year round for many years previously.

[davidjohnson6]

Disappointing though it may seem, is there really enough demand for a leisure route like Southampton-Limoges to be profitable in November or January ?

[adfly]

Fair point, but just from going off how many years the routes have been operated over the winter I would have assumed that they at least were able to make a little money or break even.

If the schedule does not change once Flybe do a full release then SOU will lose a large number of routes this winter, most of which have been around for quite a long time. It shows the disadvantages of an airport being so dependant on a single airline. Currently we will have lost (compared to last winter, frequencies are approximate);

Alicante - 2 weekly
Bergerac - 3 weekly
Grenoble - 1 weekly
Guernsey - 8 weekly
La Rochelle - 2 weekly
Limoges - 3 weekly
Malaga - 2 weekly
Nantes - 4 weekly
Rennes - 4 weekly
Salzburg - 1 weekly

With frequency reductions elsewhere and the loss of the based E195 it looks to be a quiet winter.

[Rivet Joint]

And yet SOU has been experiencing strong growth over the last year or so. Especially over the last few months. Unlike the various dud airports, that rub along with their aldi airlines, BE must be getting theatall important yield at SOU. I fly with them regularly and tickets are always fairly expensive. The French routes are not really about leisure, more the 2nd home market. The south of England is the most affluent so you get the idea why these routes seem to have worked year round.

I have mentioned previously on the BE thread that the new management's attitude towards the cornerstones of their business is quite astounding. Without SOU, BHX and EXT there would be no BE and I suspect if you took them out of their route network today BE wouldn't last a year. Yet some bright spark is obviously flogging the idea that making deals with desperate airports (that are deserted for a reason) and flogging dirt cheap seats is the winning formula. Sure this works for the big boys with their scale and larger aircraft but with BE and their regional sized equipment? It's all starting to sound very familiar, BMI Baby anyone?

[Deano777]

The flights out of the "deserted" airports only make up 3% of Flybe's route network. What is more astounding is how the average line pilot or ground handler that frequents these boards actually come across as though they know how to run an airline better than anyone. It's all rather dull now, infact it's become even more dull than the "flymaybe" tag, and that's saying something.

[adfly]

Rivet Joint - we get it, you have an irrational hatred for a certain airport ~30 miles from SOU, your constant bashing on here has become dull and repetitive. I would say the generally good loads reported on here and fact that Flybe have continued all of the domestic/city routes with little change in frequency over the winter suggests that BOH is working for them.

The thing with Flybe over the winter is many of the city routes have been reduced in frequency compared to last winter despite the growth they have seen in recent months. Lets hope the full release of the winter schedule brings some better news for SOU.

As an aside, does anybody know if VLM are continuing over the winter? On their website if you search for a return journey the outbound flights are available but the inbound ones are all blank showing 'no available seats'.

[Rivet Joint]

Deano: This is a forum, such a thing wouldn't exist if people didn't give their own personal opinion on matters.

Adfly: I do not have a hatred of BOH. My annoyance comes from the fact I rely on BE at SOU heavily and after all these years of solidifying a great base they are deciding to stick a thorn in their own side and operate a marginal base that is kept afloat because Manchester airport group did a deal with them. I find it odd that you live in Southampton yet appear to wish for BOH to succeed? Incidentally, my previous post wasn't solely aimed at BOH, reports that BE have signed a 10 year deal to operate at CWL is further evidence of their short sighted strategy. The second the financial incentives dry up, these airports will be back to being seasonal operations.

[adfly]

Deano: This is a forum, such a thing wouldn't exist if people didn't give their own personal opinion on matters.

Adfly: I do not have a hatred of BOH. My annoyance comes from the fact I rely on BE at SOU heavily and after all these years of solidifying a great base they are deciding to stick a thorn in their own side and operate a marginal base that is kept afloat because Manchester airport group did a deal with them. I find it odd that you live in Southampton yet appear to wish for BOH to succeed? Incidentally, my previous post wasn't solely aimed at BOH, reports that BE have signed a 10 year deal to operate at CWL is further evidence of their short sighted strategy. The second the financial incentives dry up, these airports will be back to being seasonal operations.

I wish to see both succeed, and do not see how a 1 1/2 aircraft base would significantly dilute Flybe's sizable operation at SOU. Each serves a different market and catchment, of course in a ideal world there would be a single airport with the transport links of SOU and the airfield of BOH!

[Deano777]

That's right adfly, and again, Rivet, those two bases account for only 3% of their route network, and what's wrong with doing deals with airports? Ryanair have been doing it for years. If the deals mean that it mitigates the lack of numbers on seats then where's the risk? I'm pretty sure our management team have crunched the numbers and done the maths before signing on the dotted line. From what I can see the routes out of both airports are not suffering from a lack of numbers so far.

[Rivet Joint]

Adfly: I agree with you that if BOH had the transport links it could trump SOU as the bigger base and if SOU had more stands then BOH would probably lose out. However, a couple of new stands is more attainable both financially and logistically. The routes brought in at BOH by BE are pretty much exactly the same as the ones they already operate from SOU.


Deano: I'm sure you are right but it's an indication of where the new management are pitching the business. In my opinion BE exist as a result of bringing in the q400 and building a safe and dependable route network at a few key strategically placed airports (EXT, SOU, BHX, MAN, NCL, GLA, EDI). I appreciate things change but BE cannot play EZY/FR at their own game especially with embraers and q400s surely? It might get them the quick buck but I just hope long term they don't ignore the backbone of their business. My broadband package was great for the first 6 months until the discount stopped!

[Deano777]

Rivet Joint

It's not really an indication at all, the new management's strategies haven't changed. It's a two armed strategy of white label flying and regional connectivity, not only point to point but to the world. Look at how many code shares Flybe have now. This is an indication that they are trying to connect the regions to the world without having to touch LHR. The UK market is largely saturated on the trunk routes and the only way to make it work is to fly smaller aircraft with higher frequencies to give the customers choice. What about the 195s at CWL I hear you ask, firstly the 195s are a costly mistake undertaken by the previous management and the deal isn't aircraft specific, it was a 10 year deal to fly routes from CWL. The 195s are proving difficult to offload so why not mitigate the losses on them by flying them? That's exactly what they are doing. I have to be careful with sensitive information being posted on here so I'll stop there because I don't know what's in the public domain and what isn't, but my humble opinion is that you will see a few more regional airports utilised that are currently under served in the future, and if they can achieve this by offloading some of the risks & associated costs then why not?. In doing all this they are just serving their core business, it's positive, not negative. You could possibly buy a ticket to fly from NQY to Sydney, that's got to be a good thing, surely?

[jensdad]

What's the latest feeling down there on Flybe's SOU-GCI? Has it indeed ended or is it just a late release of flights from Flybe? Wouldn't mind a trip to Guernsey at half term but getting to SOU and then using Blue Islands is pushing my budget a little...

[adfly]

Passengers down 7.5%, quite a change from the fairly strong growth seen in earlier months this year, any plausible explanations for this?

Sadly the figures for VLM are pretty abysmal if correct, 34 for Antwerp and a further 175 for Hamburg. Unless this improve significantly in the next few months I fear VLM's second visit to SOU will be a short one.

[Rivet Joint]

Adfly: I do not wish to be insulting but are you slow in the head? Try this for a plausible explanation, SOU's main client opening a base at a neighbouring airport because they quite fancied some cheaper fees at MAN. Does that help you at all? Essentially, every single customer That used BE at BOH would have used SOU. I make that a net loss of 11,179 and it's only going to get worse.

One of these airports is going to lose out eventually unless BE are stupid enough to run them side by side until they both marginalise one another.

If I was the owner of SOU (whoever they are) I would be arranging for those new stands to the north east of the runway to be created ASAP. Then I would be calling the orange lot and making them a deal they couldn't refuse. Of course SOU's new owners are some hedge fund who are just looking to park some money. Not even so much as a new bar of soap in the toilets should be expected. I shouldn't care and just fly from Gatwick but it's a crying shame how much potential SOU has. Being the cruise capital of Northern Europe alone is enough to appeal to any airline.

[darren1]

Yet the runway is short so weight restricted for the orange company. Bulldose Eastleigh, extend the runway and then lets do business.

[adfly]

Not slow in the head at all, just prefer not to jump to conclusions. I very much doubt nearly 'every single' person flying from BOH would otherwise had gone from SOU, many in its catchment would probably find BRS or EXT a convenient alternative. Also worth noting many of the decreases were on routes not served from BOH too so that could not be the only source.

The latter half of your post I do agree with, if SOU is to broaden its appeal then the airfield needs to be invested in very soon. A starter strip, perpendicular taxiway to the runway from the stand 13/14 area and the already mentioned additional stands would make the airport so much more appealing to many airlines.

I hope now the airport is no longer owned by BAA some of this may actually materialise, and you only need to look at LGW (also 'owned' by various wealth/hedge funds etc.) to see the difference an independent owner can make. While Flybe are an asset to SOU and have been for many years I would like to think that the owners will recognise that with a strong local catchment and good links to London, SOU would be able to handle more than one carrier having a 'significant' operation.

As for bulldozing Eastleigh, well I can think of a few places I'd miss more...

[Flitefone]

The default position for most people living on the south coast in Hampshire or Dorset, is to use the airport that offers the route, schedule and fare that works for their needs. That invariably means , LHR, LGW or LCY, with the added bonus of a chance of a flight from either SOU or BOH if the Schedules work (nine times in ten they don't) even though the coastal airports are usually the preferred 1st choice.

BRS and EXT are usually just too hard to get to in a reasonable time and almost never feature in plans.

It's almost never a toss up between SOU or BOH, just not enough flights from either.

[Wycombe]

Agree with a lot of what you say Flitefone, but not in the case of the useability of UK (and a few close Continental) trunk routes from SOU, with reference to your "nine in ten times they don't" comment.

The choice/frequency from SOU to places like EDI, GLA, MAN, BHD, DUB and AMS is pretty good, and personally I would always choose to fly from SOU to these places rather than have to do the same through LHR or LGW.

It's just easier/less time-consuming due to proximity of car parking, trains, less distance to walk to through the Airport etc. at SOU.

I say the above as someone who lives slightly closer to LHR than I do to SOU.

[davidjohnson6]

Eastern previously sold tickets for passenger flights on six dates over July/August between Southampton and Lorient.

These flights have now all been cancelled

[FLYAIR10]

Sadly the figures for VLM are pretty abysmal if correct, 34 for Antwerp and a further 175 for Hamburg. Unless this improve significantly in the next few months I fear VLM's second visit to SOU will be a short one. Yes,hopefuly figures will improve. The route to Antwerp should have potential though. Southampton airport seems to promote the route on their website,but maybe they should not only focus on the city of Antwerp ,but on the whole area around that city.I believe it's currently the fastest way from Southampton/Portsmouth/Havant/Bournemouth/even Farnborough areas to get in Belgium(Antwerp,Ghent,Brussels...) and the south of The Netherlands (Breda,Tilburg,Eindhoven,...). Also short city-trips to Diamond city Antwerp and the rest of Flanders should appeal. A few years ago I flew from BRU to SOU for a business meeting in Havant .All our colleagues coming through SOU found it much more convenient to come through this airport than through LGW or LHR(what they did before)

Southampton Airport destinations and route map | Southampton Airport (http://www.southamptonairport.com/destinations/)

[Rivet Joint]

I think the route and even the airline itself is set up predominately for business travellers. I think the theory was to connect the 3 ports. Certainly if you look at the prices they are charging you would have to be mad to fly them if you are using your own money. I would hazard a guess that 99% using the route are getting it on expenses with their company. They might be getting the yield despite the low take up with the high ticket prices though.

[FLYAIR10]

I think the route and even the airline itself is set up predominately for business travellers. I think the theory was to connect the 3 ports. Certainly if you look at the prices they are charging you would have to be mad to fly them if you are using your own money. I would hazard a guess that 99% using the route are getting it on expenses with their company. They might be getting the yield despite the low take up with the high ticket prices though.
http://www.pprune.org/images/statusicon/user_offline.gif http://www.pprune.org/images/buttons/report.gif (http://www.pprune.org/report.php?p=9019909) http://www.pprune.org/images/buttons/reply_small.gif (http://www.pprune.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=9019909&noquote=1)I would think they are aiming at business-people in the first place indeed.But when you book well in advance you can make use of the promo tariff,which must also be appealing to leisure passengers. e.g. in september a return ticket(promo) SOU-Antwerp currently stands at about GBP102,which is less or similar than a return ticket from SOU to Jersey or let's say Limoges in the same period with Flybe. So VLM can be affordable aswell if you plan in advance. I guess their yield management is similar to that of other airlines these days. The closer you come to the departure date,the more you are likely to pay.

[adfly]

Small piece of good news for the winter, reported in the Leeds thread. Since Flybe are (again) dropping SOU-LBA at the end of the summer, Eastern are to increase from 3 to 4 daily from the start of the winter season. Good to see they remain committed to SOU after all of these years!

[adfly]

Disappointing June for SOU, passenger numbers down 5%. While Flybe's BOH base has likely affected numbers on the duplicated routes a significant number of other routes also seem to show significant decreases.

Milan and Bastia appear to have got off to a reasonable start and the sun routes all show significant year on year increases.

I do hope another operator will step in next year as there is clearly a strong market for the routes, and it looking increasingly unlikely that they will be operated this winter or next summer.

VLM loads have improved, although the 17% overall mentioned in the VLM thread is still poor. However the reasonably high fares they appear to be charging must be balancing this out to an extent, as the route now looks to be on sale over the winter season.

Flybe's winter schedule still looks rather thin, and who knows when they are gonna release the rest of it, if they do so at all of course...

[Sharklet_321]

Not surprising given BE's reductions on GCI.

I can't believe they have just handed this high frequency route to BI.

Some strange things going on with JER too. The SOU timetable shows just two flights per day by BE. Is this correct?

[GCILover]

I've just looked and make it 5 a day during the week

[adfly]

With little going on currently at SOU and little chance any any significant changes I'll try to summarise the upcoming winter season;

Aurigny -

Alderny will operate at least twice daily (14 weekly) over the winter, although the use of the larger Do228's helps mitigate the smaller number of flights than last year (believe it was 17/18 weekly).

Blue Islands -

Guernsey is similar to last year, at least 21 weekly flights operated by the ATR 72. Obviously chosen to bump fares rather than add flights in response to Flybe throwing in the towel.

Eastern -

Aberdeen seems to be the same as last year, 10 weekly (2x Mon - Thurs, 1x Fri and Sun) all via Leeds.

Leeds increases to 21 weekly (4x Mon-Fri and 1x Sun) as a result of some more towel throwing...

Flybe -

All in all a rather disappointing schedule, if not quite as bad as when it was originally released. No new routes.

Dropped routes:

Aberdeen (Was ~21 weekly via Leeds)
Alicante (2 weekly)
Grenoble (1 weekly)
Guernsey (8 weekly)
Leeds (~21 weekly)
Malaga (2 weekly)
Salzburg (1 weekly)

Xmas only routes:

La Rochelle (1 weekly, was 2 weekly all W14/15)
Limoges (2 weekly, was 4 weekly in W14/15)
Rennes (2 weekly, was up to 6 weekly in W14/15)

Frequency reductions:

Belfast City (16 weekly, was 18 weekly W14/15)
Bergerac (3 weekly, was 4 weekly W14/15)
Dublin (18 weekly, was 27 weekly W14/15)
Manchester (27 weekly, was ~31 weekly W14/15)
Nantes (3 weekly, was 4 weekly W14/15)
Paris Orly (12 weekly, was 17 weekly W14/15)

Further reductions in capacity come from the lack of any E175's or E195's based at SOU.

Inghams -

Innsbruck will operate on Saturdays during the Ski season, flown by Austrian Airlines. Given that Salzburg has been dropped we might see them using an A319/20 to make up for lost capacity.

Total Ski

Weekly (Sunday) flight to Chambery using Germania will operate for the Ski season. Presumably on an A319 or 737 700.

VLM -

Antwerp/Hamburg is continuing over the winter with no change to the frequency (5 weekly Mon-Fri).

[MARKEYD]

Have Flybe released all of the winter programme from Southampton then ?

Trying to think if Grenoble , Salzburg and Lieda was put on later or around about now last year , they need to do it quickly if they want to capture any bookings

[adfly]

Flybe resuming DUS from late October, as a daily service operating in the evenings. Probably has better timings than when they last operated the route, so I wish them all the best and hope it doesn't get dropped a week before it starts like HAM did last year...

Link here: Flybe to fly Edinburgh-Liverpool and Southampton-Dusseldorf - Business Traveller (http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/101975/flybe-to-fly-edinburgh-liverpool-and-southampto)

In other good news Dublin is now showing as ~4 daily again and a couple of flights per day to Guernsey have appeared.

[gavinhicks]

anyone know how vlm have been doing are the numbers starting to improve

[PPRuNeUser0176]

BE appear to bring back the fourth daily SOU-DUB but cut weekend capacity from 2-1 on Sat and 3-2 on Sun.

[Jerbourg]

SOU - GCI going double daily according to the local GCI press, I hope they can win back island based passengers & get the pax figures they deserve.

[Wycombe]

FR24 reckons that BEE are using a Moldavian F100 out of SOU this morning.

[adfly]

Omega Holidays are offering a couple of day trips from SOU next April:

Rome on 16th April
Dubrovnik on 17th April

According to the website they will be operated by an Airbus A320, although there is no mention of the airline being used.

[Le Tirer]

There is a link on the website to a brochure for the Dubrovnik trip. This shows the flight being operated by Small Planet Airlines. The flight is not due back into SOU until 23:15 so there must be a good chance of it being diverted to BOH!

LT

[adfly]

A mediocre month all in all, passengers down 6.9%, although they remain up by 3.6% over the rolling year. VLM managed a combined average load of about 14 passengers per flight, meaning an average load factor of just 28%. Presumably the yields are reasonable, as it is still bookable throughout the winter. As has already been bought up VLM could do with advertising the route more widely in and around Southampton.

Milan averaged 61 passengers and Bastia averaged 81 passengers, which is not fantastic for the latter given it is an E195 route. However an E175 or Q400 would be a good match for it in the future.

The sun routes all performed well, which it now seems a certainty that ALC/AGP will not run through the winter (quite a few disappointed passengers on their fb page) we will hopefully find out the future of those routes in the summer when Flybe release S16 in October.

[uptoncol]

Good to see Thomas cook are chartering a evelop a320 next summer on a Friday dept pmi @8 am arr sou @ 9.05 dept sou 10.05 arr pmi 13.15 .col

[canberra97]

Other than the fact that SOU lacks stands especially purposely for A320 size aircraft as well as a runway of only 1,723 m or 5,653 ft what is actually stopping airlines like Easyjet to at least consider taking over the Flybe sun routes from Southampton to Alicante, Faro, Malaga, Nice and Palma?

If EZY can operated out of Southend why not Southampton, I know there are limitations as there is a steeper approach to SOU but we have had regular 737's from Air Berlin, Air Europa, etc and 757's from Thomson, First Choice, etc as well as A320's from Iberoworld, Spanair, etc flying to most of those destinations that are currently the 'sun' routes from SOU.

The new management need to get off there arse's and start promoting the airport more and with all its benefits that include direct motorway access to the M27 and M3 as well the airport station with all it's connections plus the many cruise passengers that embark on their cruise from Northern Europe's busiest cruise turnaround port with an expected 2 million passengers in 2015.

Management should be trying hard to get the likes of Easyjet and encourage them to base an aircraft at SOU to fly on the current sun routes that are probably going to be dropped by Flybe at some stage even though they have always been popular from SOU, there is a demand for more flights from SOU even though BOH is down the road the wider catchment area of SOU is huge and not everyone wants to fly Ryanair from BOH.

With two based A319 Easyjet could fly on the current sun routes as well as opening new routes to the likes of Barcelona, Ibiza, Milan, Munich, Venice, etc, maybe even offer Geneva like they do at BOH with a Swiss based aircraft.

On another note I was informed that approx 5,000 Spanish students had stayed in and around Southampton over the summer period all accommodated in the cities student blocks, surely there is a summer demand to offer a short programme of flights by the likes of Air Nostrum similar to those that fly to LTN.

Thoughts anyone especially ADFLY as I appreciate his enthusiasm for SOU.

[GCILover]

Either that or why not the likes of BA. It works out of LCY, why not from SOU. I know BA were the predominant carrier in SOU prior to Flybe but the Embraers wouldn't be an issue in and out of SOU

[pottwiddler]

I'm sure SOU management ARE trying to get extra flights/carriers/routes in. Just because you don't see it on the ground doesn't mean they are not trying. A lot of time and effort goes into a new route launch. Much of it is commercially sensitive as one airlines opportunity is also another's especially if it's a sure ire winner.
New routes are a gamble, Flybe weren't exactly sure what the outcome of launching new routes from BOH were until they launched them. Uptake was slow but now momentum on those routes is gathering they can see that they haven't detracted passengers from SOU.
So BOH, SOU and Flybe are all winners in a sense.

[canberra97]

But SOU won't be the winner if we lose all our sun routes what would be left is approximately half of the destinations that were flown by Flybe at the peak of their SOU operations.

I fear that if no airline comes forward we may see the end of these popular destinations which would be sad in my opinion.

With regards to BA City Flyer operating from SOU I was going to mention them actually they would obviously be my preference and it wouldn't affect their London operations in any way.

Let's hope the future is secure for SOU regarding the 'sun' routes and any further expansion to those destinations then SOU will be a winner and not a looser either with Flybe or another carrier or two.

With the expansion of Vueling in the UK market I would like them to reconsider operating from SOU again.

Sean

[Wycombe]

Just to point out that Flybe have been sending Q400's SOU-PMI as part of the S16 schedule, and they've been to ALC on a few occasions that I'm aware of aswell, so the "sun routes" may not entirely disappear even if the 195's are not around to operate them.

[adfly]

I am in agreement that SOU's Achilles' Heel is that is relies too strongly on a single airline for its passenger traffic. While Flybe offer a good combination of business and leisure routes on aircraft well suited to SOU they also like to chop and change a lot. Having read elsewhere that SOU will likely become an all Q400 base from this winter I sadly think the chances of the Sun routes returning in their typical sate next year is rather slim. I imagine there will be quite a few regular customers who will not be pleased with this move, especially given they have been running for the past 12 years!

Flybe may consider using Q400's for the likes of PMI and possibly ALC if it has worked out well this year, although given the jet alternatives both ex. SOU and up the road at BOH I doubt these would be massively popular, and I think we could rule out AGP/FAO on a Q400, even if it is possible on paper. Q400's could work quite well for the likes of BCN, BIA, NCE, GOA as well based on what they fly currently and have flown in the past.

A carrier like Easyjet could be very beneficial for SOU being able to operate a variety of Sun and City routes not currently served. My reservations about such an operation would be 1. Would they be happy with being limited to 2 (maybe 3 with some reshuffling) based aircraft as a result of the lack of appropriate stands for A319/20's? 2. Would they end up trying to compete more widely with Flybe, potentially killing them off routes such as EDI/GLA/AMS via a fare war and leaving those routes not as well served as they are today? and finally 3. How much would SOU affect their LGW base, and would significant expansion at the former potentially dilute some routes at their largest base a little?

BA Cityflyer I could not see operating out of SOU beyond maybe the occasional weekend charter, maybe in the future we might see a few Bath Travel charters in addition to the BOH ones they are operating next year.

Good to see that Thomas Cook will operate their own PMI flight next summer, this should be at least one of Flybe's Sun routes will still be reasonably well served;

Thomas Cook - Fri Evelop A320 (180 seats?)
Thomson - Tues/Sat Volotea 717 (125 x 2 seats)

Fingers crossed for some more good news in the coming weeks as more carries release their summer schedules.

[Rivet Joint]

I have long maintained EZY are a perfect fit for SOU. It's easy to forget that they are as much about the businessman as they are about holidays in the sun. They would fit SOU perfectly but as someone has already said we would have to sacrifice frequency. Unfortunately SOU is doomed to to a future with BE or another likeminded low aspirational airline. The only plus point on the horizon is the BOH operation being wound up once the subsidies dry up.

It's a shame an invester like Stobart doesn't come along and make a go of SOU. Look at what they have done for a pointless airport like SEN. It has all the right ingredients for a successful airport and even some ace up it's sleeves like being based in the cruise capital of Northern Europe. Unfortunately it's owned by someone's pension fund as a vehicle to park some money. Without the stands and taxiways being built the bigger airlines won't be interested.

[bean]

Adfly
If Flyb e can't offload the E195s in the next two or three months I'm sure you can expect to see the sun routes back next summer. They operated this summer as a way of offsetting the cost of keeping them grounded but will go back into storage for the winter if they can@t be got rid of

[pottwiddler]

Ok I'll bite and ask RJ the obvious.

Why is EZY a 'perfect' ft for SOU. An A320 doesn't fit all at on the stands as canberra97 says.

What subsidies are BOH getting? Would you care to enlighten us?

I'm sure that Southend users find there's a 'point' to the Airport. London is a BIG place and those on the East/South East now have extra choice other than STN and LGW.

Pensions are not for 'parking' money but ensuring growth and good return. At least I hope mine is getting that!

Over to you Riv...