Hermitageclose wrote:IMCR wrote:Flyin'Dutch' wrote:Maybe there is no need for an international airport every 30 miles in the South...
It is difficult to see why we need Southampton and Bournemouth. Bournemouth always seems to be massively under capacity, and although Southampton does better, Bournemouth has a very significant foot print into which it could expand. Links along the S Coast in this area between the two are also very good, and Gatwick is close enough to Southampton to cream off many of the passengers to the East (as is also Heathrow), whereas Bournemouth does have attractions for the West Country.....
While Bournemouth has a very significant foot print, Southampton will always has a very great advantage over Bournemouth being that it is very easy to get to, not only by road with the M27 right on its door step (only 1/2 mile from the motorway junction), but also one of the shortest Rail to Terminal Links in Europe less than 100 metres from the Station to the Terminal Building.
Bournemouth on the other hand can only be reached by road, A31/A338 with the final stretch to the Airport being over 2 miles of a single carriage way road B3073 from the A338 junction....
Yes, some very fair points, but back to FlyingDutch these are issues that could be easily rectified if we wanted to reduce the footprint of commercial aviation - not that it will happen any time soon.
It wouldnt be so bad if either encouraged GA, but they dont, so both are effectively CAT only and provide no more general service to the community. (albeit to be fair, at least Southampton do offer is it now 3 (just 3) GA slots on a first come first served basis. Before COVID they had also just about stopped instrument training which they had engaged in for years.
With apologies, but neither Southampton or Bournemouth have really made any effort towards the GA community which I suspect both could.