Transavia landings at EGHI
 

Was out and about in Southampton city centre this morning (about 11.30-12.00) and spotted two Transavia 737's at about 10-15mins interval (so potentially the second sighting could have been the same one on a g/a) decending through the cloud. I can only assume they were on approach to EGHI (I watch aircraft on this approach all the time and they were bang on the glide slope, so can't imagine what else they'd be doing there).

I didn't think Transavia flew to Southampton, infact I'm fairly sure London Luton is the only UK airport they operate out of. I'm also fairly sure that no-one operates 737's out of Southampton, the flybe e195's are the biggest aircraft to operate out of it usually (and even they use up most of the runway on landing). All seems a bit odd to me, anyone know what was going on?

I believe there were three Transavia flights due into Southampton today, although I also believe one may have diverted to Gatwick due to weather conditions.

Flights possibly in in connection with cruise ships ?.

Fosters

I also assumed they were probably connected with a cruise ship in Southampton Docks but according to a posting on another forum the one that landed at SOU offloaded Dutch armed forces personnel.

The 1st arrival TRA8749 did a go around and landed at the 2nd attempt.
The 2nd arrival TRA8753 did a go around and diverted to LGW.
The 3rd arrival TRA8765 diverted straight to BOH.

I believe that a 2nd aircraft turned up at BOH, presumably the aircraft that diverted to LGW diversion repositioning?

B737s have regularly operated into SOU in the past. A Thomsons B737 flew a weekly charter to Palma throughout the last summer.

LT

Pat42,

Just to clear up a point. The 195 doesn't need to use all of the runway at Southampton, indeed it has very good landing performance. But, Flybe require us to use the turning circle at the end of the runway for a 180 as I believe we had at least one off the side trying to turn around.

It's long enough but not wide enough:}

Funny I just came across these posts. I was flying the first Transavia 737 today to SOU.

We decided to try an approach on rwy 02 because of a slightly better landing performance on this runway (headwind). Some scattered clouds forced us to go-around, we then flew the ILS 20 apporach and landed.

The 2nd Transavia also made a go-around on the VOR 02 but were to heavy to land with the tailwind on runway 20 so they diverted to Gatwick.

The 3rd was already scheduled to got to BOH to take all the pax we had to leave behind beacuse of the performance limitations.

Indeed it was military personnel going on a trainig mission.

For info: our mimimum landing distance on the -800 is 1550 meters and 1370 for the -700.

Transavia Landings at EGHI
 

TRACK
I was at SOU to hopefully photo your arrivals - it was foul- well done to you! The thing that amazed me was that when all 3 crews were asked about diversions they suggested Bristol, Gatwick even Heathrow but nobody seem to have Bournemouth as an obvious 2nd choice. Bearing in mind the enormous amount spent recently on CAT3 and ILS at BOH and that it's only 20 or so miles away surely this was the obvious 1st choice if weather was acceptable (which in fact it was). In fact in the end 2 of the 3 turned up at BOH - proving my point ! Should not SOU ATC have suggested BOH ? I tust and hope it's nothing to do with BAA and MAG . I dont wish to be contraversial - just interested!

I was flying the second Transavia flight that diverted to LGW. At OCC (ops) that morning Bristol and LGW were given as the first 2 alternates. As we don't normally fly to southern England I think it might simply have been lack of awareness by our Ops dept of the facilities available at Bournemouth. It is not in our FMC database or included in the onboard LIDO charts. Had to enter co-ords and wait for faxed copies of paperwork at LGW.

The 3rd flight was originally also supposed to go to SOU but shortly before it's departure was refiled to BOH due to longer ldg dist and the 2 ILS's but my colleague and I were already enroute. Live and learn....

Hopefully they'll route all 3 flight from BOH when the military guys and gals come back next week - would make life a lot easier - no need for short runway qualified pilots.... (flights to rwys less than 1800m need special checkride)

A big thankyou to Piton and Track for their very informative postings.

Would the original decision to use SOU rather than BOH have been made by the Dutch armed forces or by Transavia Ops? I assume that the troops were enroute to Salisbury Plain but obviously do not know the exact location. The distance from BOH to Salisbury is given as 24.68 miles by Multimap and SOU to Salisbury as 24.27 miles! Given these almost identical distances, I would have thought the longer runway with ILS at either end, and CATIII on 26, would have made BOH the obvious choice.

LT

Maybe they were linking up with something in Portsmouth?

I too would like to thank Track and Piton for their replies. I thought the choice of SOU was to do with the Dutch Army vehicles being at Marchwood (convoy seen on A36)...Hoping to see you again at BOH !

Transavia Return
 

Looks like the flights are returning to EGHI today to pick up their passengers

If they were mil flights I would of thought Boscombe Down may of been considered