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British Airways axes more Southampton flights for Summer 2023 – what’s left?

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For the second time in recent months, British Airways has taken an axe to its flying schedule out of Southampton Airport.

Some HfP readers may be surprised to know that British Airways runs a relatively large number of routes out of Southampton.

The launch of these services got caught up in the pandemic (the original announcement was made in December 2020) so they have never had much of a promotional push. The initial route launches were, in many cases, heavily delayed or suspended altogether. There is – was – a full service planned for Summer 2023.

EDIT: The original version of this article said that start dates for Southampton flights had been pushed back to mid July. Whilst flights seemed to have temporarily disappeared from the booking system yesterday, they are still operating. Apologies for any inconvenience caused. We have listed the start dates below.

British Airways southampton

Southampton Airport was, as the picture below shows, a major Flybe base before the airline collapsed. The BA services are a welcome respite for the airport which lost virtually all of its scheduled services at that point, although many routes have been picked up by other airlines since.

The BA flights use the Embraer E190 aircraft which serve London City Airport during the week but have nothing to do when City is closed over the weekend.

Which routes were pulled in October?

Back in October, three routes from Southampton were cancelled for Summer 2023. The cancelled routes are:

  • Florence
  • Ibiza
  • Nice

To this list you can now add:

  • Mykonos

(But don’t panic – if you search Southampton to Mykonos on ba.com, you are offered Southampton to Glasgow (Loganair) to London Gatwick to Heathrow to Mykonos, a trip taking almost 20 hours.)

British Airways chops three Southampton routes for Summer 2023

What British Airways routes remain at Southampton?

Here is the list. Some of the routes below only have one departure per week. You are locked into a seven night trip unless you fly back to a different British Airways airport or fly back to Southampton on a different airline.

  • Alicante
  • Bergerac
  • Dublin
  • Edinburgh
  • Faro
  • Limoges
  • Malaga
  • Palma

When do flights start?

The current start dates for 2023 are:

  • Faro – 29th April
  • Malaga – 30th April
  • Bergerac – 13th May
  • Palma – 13th May
  • Edinburgh – 14th May
  • Alicante – 15th July
  • Limoges – 15th July
  • Dublin – 16th July

What routes does BA fly from Southampton over the Winter?

Not many, but there is some life!

  • Chambery (ends 16th April)
  • Edinburgh (ends 16th April)
  • Salzburg (ends 15th April)

Southampton is a good airport for Londoners ….

Many Londoners have probably never flown from Southampton. It is, however, surprisingly easy.

You can get a direct train from London Waterloo to Southampton Airport Parkway station. You will be in the small terminal building within a couple of minutes.

Is there a lounge? Yes. Here is our review of the Spitfire Lounge at Southampton Airport.

Is there Business Class? Yes, Business Class is available. As these are Embraer aircraft with 2×2 seating, however, there is no ’empty middle seat’ benefit. You would get access to the Spitfire Lounge.

Flights are bookable as usual via ba.com, for cash or Avios.

There is a special page on ba.com for the Southampton routes here, although it has not been updated in some time and contains multiple closed routes.

The BA page on the Southampton Airport website does seem to be current, with Mykonos already removed.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (38)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Harry T says:
    20 Dec20 December 08:33

    BA have cancelled my midday NCL-LHR for next May about two days after I booked it!

    • Numpty says:
      20 Dec20 December 08:56

      They’ve also cancelled my GLA flight for next May – got the email ‘we’ve changed your seat reservation’ before the cancellation email!

      • JDB says:
        20 Dec20 December 09:02

        Ditto. Hopefully will work out well for everyone. My May LHR-ARN/CPH-LHR flights had the outbound inconveniently rescheduled and the return cancelled which enabled me to rebook both online to the flights I actually preferred vs the ones I had chosen as they were by far the cheapest – only £220 return Club.

      • ClubSmed says:
        20 Dec20 December 09:05

        Same here, for my GLA flight in April. Yesterday I got the email ‘we’ve changed your seat reservation’ before the cancellation email…

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      20 Dec20 December 11:29

      Two days? thats eons of time.

      Last year I booked a flight at 11am. Got the cancellation email at 11pm

      Even the BA holidays rep was shocked by that!

  • Simon says:
    20 Dec20 December 08:42

    They seem to have taken an axe to quite a few flights this week, I booked a FRA-LHR for May 1st and it was cancelled a day after I booked it. I had a LHR-VIE round trip booked for May cancelled, booked a replacement flight and 8 minutes after booking it got a seat reservation change, checked and found that had also been cancelled.

    Maybe it’s always happened but I’m only just noticing but it seems to be common for airlines to sell a full schedule of flights these days then take an axe to some nearer the time, resulting in inflated price flights where they have combined 2 or 3 flights into 1. At least unlike last year more notice is being given.

    • Lady London says:
      20 Dec20 December 13:27

      In this respect it’s clearly been planned to circumvent EU261 as much as they can, by BA and other airlines well ahead. Under cover of covid Easyjet and BA appear to have vastly extended the number of hours change in flight departure time under their terms and conditions, that they want a passenger to be forced to accept by BA or Easyjet being able to unilaterally change flight time as they please.

      Nothing that if BA puts, say, 5 hours as the time BA can move a flight by, without the passenger being able to refuse, what they’ve actually done is say they want to be able to reschedule that flight to anytime within a 10-hour period, not a 5-hour period, as the 5 hours they mention they’ll apply either before or after at their choosing.

      Since as @JDB says, UK courts are not obliged to follow EU decisions that bringing a flight forward by more than 1 hour gives passengers cancellation rights, I can only suggest passengers watch out for 2 things:

      1. look out for flight number change which regardless of airline presenting it as a reschedule, means it’s a cancellation not a reschedule (Easyjet consolidated flights up to 14 hours apart IME in covid, and tried to say it was not a cancellation but a reschedule when actually they’d consolidated several flights onto just 1 and cancelled all the other flights).

      2. Don’t forget to watch for ‘schedule creep’ ie multiple moves which amount to a cancellation. IMV you should always be able to compare to your original time booked as to whether the sum total of any moves is acceptable or not.

      • JDB says:
        20 Dec20 December 22:52

        BA’s rescheduling time for allowing changes is over 120 minutes and they will allow less for same day trips, flights for cruise bookings and flight (mis) connections. See their Customer Guidelines.

        A flight number change does not necessarily = cancellation which has a very specific meaning in the legislation that is elaborated in the Interpretative Guidelines.

  • Rich says:
    20 Dec20 December 08:58

    I got an email about our cancelled Mykonos flight yesterday. Frustrating!

  • Ian says:
    20 Dec20 December 09:47

    Despite the above saying Limoges flights are still operating…they are not. BA have just cancelled them too.

    • Susan says:
      20 Dec20 December 12:58

      Bu**er. Used this last year and thought it an excellent alternative for London. Although if the trains sort themselves out I will happily return to Eurostar.

  • stevenhp1987 says:
    20 Dec20 December 09:52

    I wish Southampton flights were not all weekend only…

    Despite being able to see the airport from down the road I’ve not flown with BA from SOU.

    These are the types of places I’d rather do a long weekend at than a week!

    • Richie says:
      20 Dec20 December 11:15

      Flights to Bergerac are still on ba.com, Saturdays and Tuesdays in high season.

  • David S says:
    20 Dec20 December 09:52

    Had all my flights to and from Faro changed yesterday as well. Different flight nos as well even though mostly 15 minute changes. Was so looking forward to trying the T3 Lounges as Rob and Rhys had whet my appetite but sadly all flights moved from T3 to T5

  • Nick says:
    20 Dec20 December 13:43

    Our Customer Commitment

    “We are fully committed to helping each and every one of our customers enjoy the best possible experience, wherever you might be travelling.”

    https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/legal/customer-commitment/our-customer-commitment

    Yeah, right! As always, but especially with BA now, don’t expect anything, whatsoever, over & above the very basic, and certainly nothing beyond what they want for themselves!

    Anyone surprised?! Really?!

  • yonasl says:
    20 Dec20 December 15:17

    A good train connection to LHR would be much better than adding an airport 1.5hrs away by train from London.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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