Southampton Airport - has it still not recovered following Covid?

[nw1]

I've noticed that Southampton Airport still doesn't appear to have quite the same number of flights it did pre-Covid.

I have no firm data but for example, tomorrow (Wed 18) the first flight out is the 0800 to Guernsey and there are 18 flights in total (see: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/airports/sou/departures, choosing tomorrow as it's uncluttered by code-sharing). I know that in the early 2010s, certainly, there was a whole raft of perhaps 4 or 5 flights all taking off at around 0700, if I remember right to Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow and Edinburgh - and there seemed to be far more flights, perhaps 30 per day.

Obviously Flybe went bust but it does appear that no-one has fully stepped in to provide the full level of pre-Covid service.
There seem to be less flights to UK and Ireland destinations and less in the way of continental summer-only services too: we're now in June so we should be presumably seeing more flights than the winter months.

I guess Flybe had a base at SOU and therefore it was easy for them to provide an intensive service, while now SOU is being served solely by aircraft based elsewhere so it's much trickier to provide the level of service that was previously there? Even still it looks like no-one has tried to setup a base in Southampton in the way that Flybe previously did.

 

[pug1]

I've noticed that Southampton Airport still doesn't appear to have quite the same number of flights it did pre-Covid.

I have no firm data but for example, tomorrow (Wed 18) the first flight out is the 0800 to Guernsey and there are 18 flights in total (see: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/airports/sou/departures, choosing tomorrow as it's uncluttered by code-sharing). I know that in the early 2010s, certainly, there was a whole raft of perhaps 4 or 5 flights all taking off at around 0700, if I remember right to Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow and Edinburgh - and there seemed to be far more flights, perhaps 30 per day.

Obviously Flybe went bust but it does appear that no-one has fully stepped in to provide the full level of pre-Covid service.
There seem to be less flights to UK and Ireland destinations and less in the way of continental summer-only services too: we're now in June so we should be presumably seeing more flights than the winter months.

I guess Flybe had a base at SOU and therefore it was easy for them to provide an intensive service, while now SOU is being served solely by aircraft based elsewhere so it's much trickier to provide the level of service that was previously there? Even still it looks like no-one has tried to setup a base in Southampton in the way that Flybe previously did.

It’s the Flybe issue. Over the years prior to British European/Flybe taking on most of the regional routes SOU had developed, perhaps in part due to the ownership of BAA as was, a very admirable portfolio of regional and business routes. Sadly the days of regional airlines are largely gone. Loganair will reopen their base shortly I understand, but that will only be modest route growth. easyjet appear to be growing their offering there (just today they’ve announced a new Barcelona route to start in October) and TUI have restarted their PMI owing to the modest runway extension.

Sadly it’s the runway that restricts other mainstream operators from starting flights from there, something which Bournemouth is capitalising on. I wonder whether easyJet may open a base there in due course which would do wonders for the flailing passenger figures, indeed they’re following the same pattern at LBA and SOU as they did at BHX which was to grow their non-based route portfolio initially with a view to eventually opening a base. There’s certainly a big enough market in that part of the world, and whilst I’ve never had reason to use the airport I understand it offers a decent experience. If Jet2 and Ryanair continue to grow at Bournemouth I can only see TUI trying to expand at SOU a bit, however they will always be limited in terms of destinations due to aforementioned runway constraints.

 

[Bald Rick]

Plenty of other airports in the same boat, notably Exeter, Cardiff, Southend and London City with massive reductions, and Glasgow, Luton, Inverness, Gatwick and East Mids with smaller reductions (comparing passenger numbers 2024 to 2019).

 

[pug1]

Plenty of other airports in the same boat, notably Exeter, Cardiff, Southend and London City with massive reductions, and Glasgow, Luton, Inverness, Gatwick and East Mids with smaller reductions (comparing passenger numbers 2024 to 2019).

Exeter seems to be slowly growing. Cardiff is a basket case in the shadow of Bristol. Southend has managed to regain its easyjet base. Glasgow has suffered from the break up of BAA and Edinburgh now being a direct competitor naturally taking the long haul market. I think the others can absorb that drop in overall passenger numbers as it’s a drop in the ocean in relative terms. EMA is aiming to grow its freight market share even further.

But I agree, it seems to signify the consolidation we saw in the aviation industry over the last 20 years. Although more people are flying now than ever before, they have less choice of airlines (generally speaking) than they did in, say, 2006. Those airlines aren’t in the business of competing with themselves on cost and spreading themselves out too thinly. Therefore a smaller number of airports tend to get the critical mass leaving others behind. This is why the fundamental principles behind reopening DSA are completely flawed.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

The domestic network has shrunk considerably since the heyday - there are no flights now between Manchester and Scotland's Central Belt now for example. Loganair is filling some of the gaps left by Flybe - Manchester to Southampton (and to Exeter) start in October, but cheap they ain't. Flybe did have quite good interconnecting arrangements - I once flew from Manchester to Rennes in Brittany, changing in Southampton, for some ridiculously low fare. Exeter now has a KLM flight to Schiphol, Amsterdam - no idea how it is doing.

 

[mrmartin]

Let's see when it comes to Cardiff. Bristol is a massive victim of its own success and is really struggling to keep up with the growth. I suspect Cardiff will start doing better over the next few years as Bristol is at (imo, over) capacity and it will be a good few years before any significant terminal extension will be complete and there is a lot of growth in the area.

 

[pug1]

Let's see when it comes to Cardiff. Bristol is a massive victim of its own success and is really struggling to keep up with the growth. I suspect Cardiff will start doing better over the next few years as Bristol is at (imo, over) capacity and it will be a good few years before any significant terminal extension will be complete and there is a lot of growth in the area.

I think if anything airlines will just hold off from any further growth until facilities become available at Bristol. See the same at LBA where it’s effectively full at peak times, but that’s because it’s where the airlines want to be, they don’t want to be at CWL/DSA and so they don’t go there, capacity or not.

 

[Snow1964]

The latest airport statistics (April 2025) have Southampton at just 27,121 passengers (less than 1000 per day).

If I have counted correctly 22nd busiest UK airport

There were 21,896,228 passengers nationally in April, so Southampton was just over 0.1% of the total.

Bournemouth airport is probably nearest alternative, that had 100,961 passengers, so nearly 4 times the number.

https://www.caa.co.uk/Documents/Download/23998/5d9b9059-c768-4362-a04a-6a995ccd8728/17156

 

[pug1]

The latest airport statistics (April 2025) have Southampton at just 27,121 passengers (less than 1000 per day).

If I have counted correctly 22nd busiest UK airport

There were 21,896,228 passengers nationally in April, so Southampton was just over 0.1% of the total.

Bournemouth airport is probably nearest alternative, that had 100,961 passengers, so nearly 4 times the number.

https://www.caa.co.uk/Documents/Download/23998/5d9b9059-c768-4362-a04a-6a995ccd8728/17156

Yes how times have changed. I seem to recall Southampton excelling 2 million passengers per year at its peak, struggle to get a quarter of that now.

Of course Bournemouth has based aircraft for TUI, Ryanair and now Jet2 which increases volume significantly. Risk, as seen at Southampton (and Southend after covid), is that you lose one or two of those airlines and you lose most of your volume. It’s a fickle business at times.

 

[nw1]

Unfortunately Bournemouth Airport seems to have almost non-existent ground public transport, a quick check reveals just 2 buses a day, the outbound journeys both very early in the morning. Three return journeys all in the afternoon or early evening. Geared at employees rather than passengers, I guess - furthermore it does not take a direct route with a journey time of 40-50 mins, again suggesting its main target is employees living locally, rather than passengers coming from further afield.

Southampton Airport by contrast has excellent ground transport.

One wonders whether there would be a place for a regular express bus from Bournemouth town centre and station to the airport, if Bournemouth is indeed taking more passengers than Southampton.

I do note that the stats only appear to cover international traffic (from my reading of the document, anyway), whereas Southampton is presumably mostly domestic. Or does "EU" mean the entire continent of Europe, including the UK, Norway, Switzerland, etc, rather than the European Union?

 

[jfollows]

In the period 2000-2015 I flew from Manchester to Southampton, Bristol, Exeter & Norwich and probably none of these is possible today.
Southampton was well-timed for a long meeting, which in my case was at Southampton University.
Today I don’t mind because my time is my own and I don’t have work pressures, so train is fine, although I will go out of my way not to use XC.

 

[pug1]

Unfortunately Bournemouth Airport seems to have almost non-existent ground public transport, a quick check reveals just 2 buses a day, the outbound journeys both very early in the morning. Three return journeys all in the afternoon or early evening. Geared at employees rather than passengers, I guess - furthermore it does not take a direct route with a journey time of 40-50 mins, again suggesting its main target is employees living locally, rather than passengers coming from further afield.

Southampton Airport by contrast has excellent ground transport.

One wonders whether there would be a place for a regular express bus from Bournemouth town centre and station to the airport, if Bournemouth is indeed taking more passengers than Southampton.

I do note that the stats only appear to cover international traffic (from my reading of the document, anyway), whereas Southampton is presumably mostly domestic. Or does "EU" mean the entire continent of Europe, including the UK, Norway, Switzerland, etc, rather than the European Union?

Public transport would be mostly useless for the nature of flights Bournemouth currently handles. Outbound leisure usually requires arrival at the airport at 4am or arrival back after midnight which is outside of the usual operating hours of the airport. With this in mind there would be a lack of visibility of any public transport service so it would need to be subsidised. Airports like Bournemouth make significant amounts of revenue (something like 30%) from car parking.

Southampton happens to be on a main line so naturally a station is viable, the nature of its traffic traditions ally us such that you’re more likely to get people using public transport (train services) so it will have been more viable cost effective justification for providing a station there.

 

[swt_passenger]

To avoid duplication there is already a thread active until last month about Bournemouth‘s public transport issues:

Does Bournemouth Airport need better public transport provision?

Bournemouth Airport (BOH) is an airport with a lot of potential since it offers cheap flights to many European destinations, but the biggest issue is that the public transport offering is next to nil. There is the 737 bus service from Bournemouth but the only journeys in the outbound direction...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Snow1964]

Southampton airport can't handle planes with big fuel loads due to a relatively short runway, it is only 1887m (6191 feet) long, following a 164m length extension 2 years ago. It is just 37m (121 feet) wide. Consequently unlikely to see a flight much longer than 2 hours from Southampton.

Bournemouth airport runway is longer and wider at 2271m (7451 feet) long and 45.5m (150 feet) wide so can handle longer flights including some wide body planes. The runway was lengthened as far back as 1996 to allow Transatlantic flights (although services never really happened). There are some big cargo planes that use Bournemouth airport.

 

[nw1]

Public transport would be mostly useless for the nature of flights Bournemouth currently handles. Outbound leisure usually requires arrival at the airport at 4am or arrival back after midnight which is outside of the usual operating hours of the airport. With this in mind there would be a lack of visibility of any public transport service so it would need to be subsidised. Airports like Bournemouth make significant amounts of revenue (something like 30%) from car parking.

Southampton happens to be on a main line so naturally a station is viable, the nature of its traffic traditions ally us such that you’re more likely to get people using public transport (train services) so it will have been more viable cost effective justification for providing a station there.

There are a few early-morning flights but Bournemouth seems to have a good number of midday flights too:

Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

The world’s most popular flight tracker. Track planes in real-time on our flight tracker map and get up-to-date flight status & airport information.

www.flightradar24.com

My one usage of Bournemouth (in 2008, not sure if it's changed) was with an afternoon departure (to Alicante) and an early afternoon arrival a week later.

 

[swt_passenger]

Is Southampton still by default the only realistic airport for flights to the Channel Islands? I suppose much of that flow is fairly guaranteed, but I wonder what proportion of passenger numbers it generates, as they’re also small aircraft.

 

[nw1]

Is Southampton still by default the only realistic airport for flights to the Channel Islands? I suppose much of that flow is fairly guaranteed, but I wonder what proportion of passenger numbers it generates, as they’re also small aircraft.

Looks like there are a good number to London and some other airports: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/airports/gci/departures

 

[pug1]

There are a few early-morning flights but Bournemouth seems to have a good number of midday flights too:

Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

The world’s most popular flight tracker. Track planes in real-time on our flight tracker map and get up-to-date flight status & airport information.

www.flightradar24.com

My one usage of Bournemouth (in 2008, not sure if it's changed) was with an afternoon departure (to Alicante) and an early afternoon arrival a week later.

But what percentage of passengers using outbound leisure services arrive at the departure airport by public transport? It’s just not as convenient as car or private hire taxi and so it doesn’t provide the right environment for public transport to be viable in. In the case of Southampton when it had the numerous business oriented routes it was more likely that people would need to use the train to get to their destination. Completely different audience.

 

[nw1]

Noticed that one of the Southampton flights, Loganair LM324 to Edinburgh (depart 1230), appears to be diverted to Manchester today before then heading on to Edinburgh to arrive well after 2100.

Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24

The world’s most popular flight tracker. Track planes in real-time on our flight tracker map and get up-to-date flight status & airport information.

www.flightradar24.com

Any ideas what's going on here (assuming the data is accurate?)
Weather seems benign unless it's different up there.

 

[westv]

Is Southampton still by default the only realistic airport for flights to the Channel Islands? I suppose much of that flow is fairly guaranteed, but I wonder what proportion of passenger numbers it generates, as they’re also small aircraft.

There are flights from Leeds Bradford to Jersey.

 

[AlastairFraser]

There are flights from Leeds Bradford to Jersey.

I think that user meant that it's the only realistic airport that's a gateway to the Channel Islands for residents and visitors, as well as the most convenient city for UK visits to shop and access higher education etc..

 

[weeklycommuter]

At least Southampton Airport, unlike one or two other airports, is fully funded privately and not dependent on money from taxpayers. The former Operations Director stated that no airport has a right to exist if it can't make money.

Southampton Airport on course to lose £4.5m this year - but runway extension will 'make it viable'

SOUTHAMPTON Airport is likely to lose around £4.5million this year as it prepares to build the runway extension that will make it viable, a meeting…

www.dailyecho.co.uk

Mr Szalay said it would be impossible to reach 2019 passenger numbers again without the runway extension, which will allow airlines to fly bigger planes.
“Once Flybe fell, there was no other airline with a big enough fleet that can operate off our runway,” he said.
“There are not enough airlines with small enough aircraft."
He pointed out that Doncaster had already seen its airport close after it failed to secure enough airlines.
"No airport has a right to exist if it can't make money," he said.

 

[pug1]

At least Southampton Airport, unlike one or two other airports, is fully funded privately and not dependent on money from taxpayers. The former Operations Director stated that no airport has a right to exist if it can't make money.

Airports can be objects of local pride which are defended fiercely by the public and this makes them ideal political footballs. This is exactly what’s happening in Doncaster, a completely unviable proposition they’re attempting to resuscitate because there are myths about the former operators true intentions.

30 years ago, when low cost airlines were only just getting started, there were numerous little commuter outfits and regional airlines operating franchise agreements on behalf of the various flag carriers. SOU did a good job of attracting these types of operators and also built up a good base for Jersey (later British) European. There were also numerous small tour operators and charter airlines which meant that they could fly aircraft into regional airports and charge a premium to the passengers wanting to use their local airport for the convenience.

It’s all changed now. Regional airlines aren’t really viable hence only having a couple (Loganair and Eastern being the main ones, but then niches like Aurigny and Blue Islands). The tour operators went to the wall in the financial crash and lots of the little charter airlines went with them. The low cost airlines that remain are now dominating and they will only fly from a smaller number of airports to keep costs down and yield high.

In the case of SOU, I think with Bournemouth taking a lot of that traffic due to the longer runway, SOU will always be battling. I think easyjet will eventually base there as I’ve said previously, and hopefully it will retain its current traffic. But its days of being a 2mppa plus airport are gone sadly. Doncaster would be better used for housing and light industry.