Air Southwest

From Wikicompany

Air Southwest, a subsidiary of Sutton Harbour Holdings, is an airline based at Plymouth City Airport, Plymouth, England.

Air Southwest operates regional scheduled passenger services from the south-west of England.

The airline uses the popular low fares, web-based format for bookings - over 90% of all reservations are made online. In its first eighteen months of operations Air Southwest carried over 200,000 passengers, increasing the number of passengers flying between Plymouth/Newquay and London Gatwick Airport by 22%.

The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Plymouth-based regeneration and transport group Sutton Harbour Holdings Plc, which also owns and operates Plymouth City Airport.

The company employs 72 people and is headed by Malcolm Naylor (previously chief executive of Brymon Airways, a Plymouth-based carrier integrated into British Airways in the 1990s).

Code data

• ICAO Code: WOW
• Callsign: Swallow

Services

Air Southwest operates scheduled services as follows (at April 2005):

• Plymouth to Bristol, Jersey, Leeds/Bradford, London Gatwick and Manchester
• Newquay to Bristol, Dublin, Leeds/Bradford, London Gatwick and Manchester
• Bristol to Dublin, Jersey, Leeds/Bradford, Manchester and Plymouth

Fleet

The Air Southwest fleet consists of the following aircraft (at May 2005):

• 4 De Havilland Canada Dash 8-300

History

The airline was established in May 2003 to fill the void left by the withdrawal of British Airways (BA) from the region. It began operations on 26 October 2003, the day after BA withdrew on the Plymouth-Newquay-London Gatwick Airport route. This was followed shortly after by the Plymouth-Bristol-Manchester route which was later extended to and from Jersey.

On April 11th 2005 the company further expanded its operations, establishing a new hub at Newquay, with flights to Dublin (direct) and Leeds/Bradford via Bristol. The expansion was accompanied by the addition of a second crew base at Newquay (the first being Plymouth, comprising five cabin crew and ten pilots, where one aircraft is now based overnight.

During the summer a weekly charter flight is operated on Saturdays between Jersey and Humberside Airport. The airline also operates charter flights on behalf of Plymouth Argyle F.C., transporting players and supporters to away games.

External links

• Air Southwest Passenger Opinions