Flybe once offered low‑cost flights from Southampton, later lost due to costs

Jersey European Airways, later rebranded as Flybe, linked Southampton Airport with cities in Britain and Europe, offering promotional fares in single figures and allowing passengers to book cheap weekend trips to France or Scotland using spare change; the carrier kept fares affordable for local families by charging the base fare without Air Passenger Duty, but the cheap tickets gradually disappeared as mounting operational pressures and spiralling overheads made it impossible to match the lean economics of Ryanair and easyJet, while the UK’s Air Passenger Duty added a £26 levy to every round‑trip ticket and an ambitious expansion using large, expensive‑to‑lease Embraer regional jets proved costly on secondary routes