Southampton Airport Blog

Southampton to take on London airports

Thu, 05 May 2011 12:31:00 BST

In a bid to become the ‘airport of choice’ for travellers in the south of England, Southampton Airport has launched a campaign to snatch customers away from Gatwick, Heathrow, Stansted, and the other airports in and around London.

Southampton, the smallest of the British Airport Authority’s six airports, offers flights to 50 destinations, including routes to ‘sun and sea’ spots, such as Palma on Mallorca, and Faro in Portugal. The hub is well known for its services to France and the Channel Islands, including the remote Isles of Scilly, and the winter sports haven, Chambery.

The ‘It’s My Airport…’ scheme, which began earlier this month, will attempt to convince people from Basingstoke, Guildford, Aldershot, and other cities in the M3 corridor, that flying from Southampton Airport is a “viable alternative” to travelling to London. “Heading south can often be a much quicker door-to-door experience”, explained Jan Halliday, marketing boss at the Hampshire hub.

A press release on the airport’s website notes that Southampton is within a minute’s walk of the nearest train station, allowing passengers to leave the car at home, and avoid the often-high fees charged by airport parking firms.

Whether local flyers will be swayed by Southampton’s newfound confidence is debatable, given that low-cost carrier, Flybe, operates more than half of the routes offered by the airport. The carrier’s popularity in the UK is not in doubt, but Flybe nonetheless offers some routes at more than twice the price of easyJet at the London airports. Departing June 2 2011, Flybe routes from Southampton to Faro, for example, cost just over £100 each way, compared to £55 with easyJet from Gatwick. The promise of “less stress” and convenience suddenly seems like a consolation, rather than a bonus.

‘It’s My Airport…’ will be advertised on four radio stations in the southeast until late autumn, including Eagle FM and Reading 107 FM. The campaign has also been given its own mini-website, which presents the user with a list of Southampton’s credentials, before yielding to the airport's homepage.

Eastern increases capacity for 2011

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:17:20 GMT

From February 17 2011, Eastern Airways will increase capacity on routes from Southampton Airport to Aberdeen in the northeast of Scotland. The expansion will add a later service from Aberdeen, departing at 18.55 on every weekday evening, and arriving in Southampton two hours later, at 20.45.

Eastern, like Air Southwest and the ill fated, Highland Airways, is a relatively unknown airline outside of the cities it serves. The carrier flies to and from 14 UK hubs, including Durham Tees Valley, Bristol, and Leeds, and operates direct flights from Aberdeen to Bergen and Stavanger in Norway.

Despite its lack of renown, Eastern Airways is attempting to take on the likes of BMI, Dutch airline, KLM, Flybe, and Thomas Cook, by introducing extra flights from Aberdeen to the South of England. The enduring popularity of the route is no coincidence; the Dyce hub supplies the London airports with passengers, many of which are natural resource barons on their way to North Africa, Russia, or Kazakhstan.

Roger Hage, Eastern’s boss of ground operations, said that the capacity boost would benefit those “travelling to do a day’s business,” as the air route is “significantly quicker than by road or rail.” Derek Provan, new managing director at Aberdeen, referred to Eastern’s route as a “vital link for our business passengers,” given that the airline has been flying from the Scottish city for the past 13 years.

Eastern Airways maintains fast-track security channels at both airports, and a special business lounge at Aberdeen. The carrier also offers a Sunday service from Scotland, departing at 16.10, and returning from the south coast at 19.00.

Flybe defects to Orly

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:12:35 GMT

Low-cost carrier, Flybe, has stopped flying from Southampton Airport to Charles de Gaulle (CDG) Airport in Paris, France. The airline will instead travel from the Hampshire hub to Paris Orly, the second-largest airport in France, located 11 miles from the city centre, and 27 miles from CDG.

The airline’s flight from the south coast is now the only UK-France route hosted by Flybe to travel to Orly. Whilst the airline has not given a reason for the switch to Orly, Flybe has entered into a codesharing agreement with flag-carrier, AirFrance, at CDG, which may have required a sacrifice in aeroplane slots, specifically those planes flying to Southampton.

Codesharing is the process by which two cooperating airlines sell tickets on their partners' aircraft. For example, as part of the airline alliance, Oneworld, British Airways (BA) is allowed to sell seats on Qantas-branded flights, and vice-versa. More simply, the two carriers are sharing each other’s aircraft on certain routes. The advantage of such an agreement is that BA will be able to reach destinations offered by Qantas, which may have been beyond the UK airline’s means.

With regards to the Flybe-AirFrance codeshare, the letters ‘BE,’ a unique code used to identify Flybe in booking systems, will be affixed to AirFrance planes travelling from CDG to Budapest in Hungary, Sofia in Bulgaria, and Vienna in Austria, among others.

Similarly, the Paris-Southampton route, operated by Flybe, will be branded with AirFrance’s ‘AF’ code, allowing the French carrier to pull out of the Hampshire hub completely. Other Flybe flights, such as Birmingham-Avignon and Gatwick-Bergerac, will also bear AirFrance’s call sign, expanding its market in the UK.

Flybe has intimated that the Southampton-CDG route, which ended on October 31 2010, may return in the future.

Airport debuts feedback service

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 13:51:55 GMT

At the end of October, Southampton Airport, the smallest of the British Airport Authority’s six UK hubs, unveiled an 'instant customer feedback service,' designed to help staff deal with traveller gripes before they leave the airport.

The service, which echoes a system implemented at London Gatwick in August this year, requires users to send a text message to 80800. The message, which must begin with the word, ‘talkback,’ will then be sent to the relevant department for processing. For example, if a customer discovers that one of the airport’s toilets has flooded, the individual could inform the airport’s management via the new feedback service, and potentially have the problem solved very quickly.

Southampton boss, Adrian Cameron, noted that the 80800 number was more than just a gimmick, and something that could “help the airport be even more proactive in terms of our customer service.” Aggrieved travellers could even be met in the terminal or telephoned by a duty manager, if their concern is complicated or particularly serious in nature. Of course, airport staff will be hoping that the feedback service will collect compliments too, rather than a barrage of criticisms about submerged urinals.

Southampton’s foray into customer interactivity does seem a little dated compared to the service operating at Gatwick Airport, involving the social network, Twitter. The London hub has been asking travellers to ‘tweet’ their grievances to the @gatwick_airport Twitter address, via their mobile phone or personal computer. However, the success of Gatwick’s project hinges on the number of concerned Twitter subscribers passing through the Crawley hub, whereas the same service at Southampton is supported by the ongoing popularity of mobile phones – “over 90% of the public own a mobile phone,” Adrian Cameron explained.

Southampton’s instant customer feedback service began operating on October 20 2010. Text messages (to send and receive) are currently free of charge.

Airline reveals summer 2011 routes

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:30:51 BST

In what has become an annual event, budget airline, Flybe, has announced its summer routes for next year almost 12 months in advance, long before the present ‘sun and sea’ season reaches its climax in October.

The carrier has added a ‘preliminary’ selection of 21 new routes, flying from three UK airports – Gatwick, Southampton, and the frequently unlucky, Exeter Airport, which was drowned in 3ft of water on Thursday, last week.

Southampton, the smallest of the British Airports Authority’s six UK airports, behind Aberdeen, and the 20th largest in the country overall, will receive at least eight routes: Alicante and Malaga in Spain, Majorca's capital, Palma, Faro in Portugal, and four routes to France – Avignon, Bergerac, Rennes, and Nice.

Exeter Airport, which relies on Flybe to provide 29 of its 30 available flights, gets just three new routes, to Alicante, Malaga, and Faro.

Gatwick Airport has a much more eclectic selection of flights heading its way, with all but two routes travelling to domestic locations – Aberdeen and Inverness in Scotland, Belfast in Ireland, the two Channel Islands, Jersey and Guernsey, and Newcastle, Leeds, and Newquay on the mainland. Flybe will also add flights to Nantes in France, and Dusseldorf in Germany to its Gatwick schedules.

Mike Rutter, Flybe’s Chief Commercial Officer, noted that the new routes were part of a “first wave” of additions, which would culminate in an “extensive and affordable choice” of flights for travellers in 2011.

Prices begin at £27 for a one-way journey, taxes included, and tickets for travel between March 27 and June 30 2011 are already available online.

Continuing Flybe’s bonanza of new flights, the carrier will supplement its Belfast City base with three extra routes, to plug a scheduling gap caused by a complete Ryanair exodus. Flybe will travel from Belfast to Bristol, East Midlands, and Liverpool airports from October 31.

Southampton is 100 years old

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:53:01 BST

Throughout 2010, Southampton Airport will be celebrating its centenary with a series of special events. The Hampshire hub was founded on the site of North Stoneham Farm, the location of one of the first powered flights.

Southampton, which is one of six UK airports owned by the British Airports Authority, traces its history back to 1910, when a local man named Edwin Rowland Moon performed a ‘series of hops’ in his homemade monoplane. ‘Sadly, it didn’t end the way that he had hoped,’ explained Colin Van Geffen of the Solent Museum.

‘When he was landing he struck a tree, damaged the plane's undercarriage, and landed in a rather inelegant manner.’ The aircraft, dubbed Moonbeam II, is widely known as the first plane to take off from Southampton Airport, despite the fact that no hangers were built at the site until during the First World War, in 1917.

Southampton continued to gain prominence over the next few decades, hosting a test flight of the famous Spitfire in 1936. Local scholars also claim the compact Skeeter helicopter as a Hampshire creation, cementing the county’s place in aviation history.

Eleven unique events are planned in Southampton between June and the end of 2010, ranging from jazz nights at local nightspot, The Point, to a 100-mile car rally, featuring the first and only supercar to be built at the airport, the Gordon Keeble. The celebrations end with the unveiling of Southampton’s redeveloped departure lounge in November.

Airport bosses hope that the celebrations will bolster links with local businesses, and attract investors to Hampshire. A full list of events is available on the Southampton Airport website.