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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.

With all the negative publicity surrounding airports across the country and their controversial expansion plans that have been causing such a stir, it is good to see that the staff at Southampton Airport are keeping their spirits up and making headlines for a very different reason.

It has just been announced that the staff have been given the award for being the most courteous at any airport in the whole of Europe. And this is something that they seem to be pretty good at, as it is the second year in a row that they have been recognised by the award.

The award was provided by ACI (Airports Council International), which conducts a quarterly survey of over 100 airports across the world. Globally, over 200,000 passengers took part in the survey, which not only looked at staff courtesy but at all aspects of the airports, such as the boarding experience and the ease of checking-in, in order to find the winners in each category.

The courtesy category was not the only one that Southampton did well in: it was also voted the second best airport in Europe, being beaten to the top spot by Zurich. On top of that, the south-coast airport also came a fantastic fifth place in the global best airport category for airports which deal with fewer than 5 million passengers a year.

It was a case of smiles all round for the staff and management upon hearing the news. The managing director of Southampton Airport, Kevin Brown, said that they aim to place “great emphasis” on a “quick and easy experience” and “friendly service” for the passengers who pass through.

Southampton airport has launched a live travel information system, which is the first of its kind to be installed in a British airport. The system, which has cost approximately fifty thousand pounds to install, will provide information about public transport services, including live updates on rail networks, bus services, ferry services, and road networks across the southern region of the United Kingdom. It uses the internet to provide live data feeds, which update the information displayed to passengers arriving at the airport on a continuous basis throughout the day.

Chris Huhne, the local MP, believes that the live travel information system will “improve the passenger experience” at the airport greatly. This is not to say that Huhne had a negative opinion of the airport prior to the installation of the innovative system. Rather, the MP thinks that the airport is the “most traveller friendly airport” he has ever travelled through. Furthermore, it is extremely important to the local economy since it employs so many people in the Southampton region.

Huhne’s words were echoed by David Lees, the director of planning and development at the airport. He believes that the live travel information system will provide the passengers at Southampton with accurate and up-to-date information, which will “make it easier than ever before to breeze through Southampton Airport”.

The live system was developed by numerous organisations and agencies working together with Southampton airport. Officials working for Southampton City Council, the Highways Agency, and South West Trains were just some of the individuals involved in the scheme.

John F. Kennedy, John Lennon, George Best and Charles de Gaulle have all had airports named in their honour – even the childhood hero Robin Hood has his airport in Doncaster - but could the footballer, Matt Le Tissier, be the next to join the ranks?

Such is the power of social networking site Facebook that you just never know. A petition set up to gain support for renaming Southampton International Airport in honour of the former Saints player, Le Tissier, already has over a thousand signatures, three hundred of which were added in the space of a week. 28 year old Saints fan, Jay Limburn, is behind the move and although the airport itself does not seem to be interested in the plan, he is confident that with the rapidly growing support for his petition they will eventually have to sit up and take notice.

Le Tissier himself, although no doubt feeling flattered, has said that he finds it a little bizarre and that whilst a block of flats and a pub have already been named after him, he feels that renaming an airport after him is going a bit too far.

Le Tissier’s relationship with the city goes back a long time. He was spotted by a scout for Southampton whilst playing for an under 15s school side. He joined the Saints as an apprentice in May 1985, turning pro in October 1986. For seventeen years he played a key role in keeping Southampton in the Premiership, retiring in 2002.

Southampton airport continues to grow as more and more people see the benefits of travelling from their local airport and receiving a fast, trouble-free and friendly service, whether travelling for business or leisure.

Southampton Airport played host to an annual conference of airport chaplains in May this year with twenty eight chaplains from airports across the UK meeting together to be briefed about airport developments and to exchange chaplain news. The chaplains also received a talk from Carry Taylor, of Bournemouth airline Palmair, about a new fear-of-flying course, and took part in a training session specifically designed for airport chaplains.

Southampton Airport itself has three airport chaplains: Reverend Neville Jacob, Reverend Richard Davies and Reverend Martin Poole, who provide counselling and support to passengers as well as to the airport’s 1200 staff. Fellow airport chaplains travelled to the airport from Heathrow, Newcastle, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Shoreham and even as far as Aberdeen.

Event organiser Reverend Neville Jacob said of the conference that all the chaplains thoroughly enjoyed the day, and that their presence at the airport was a great boost to the work of the chaplains already at Southampton. He added that “having such a large group of chaplains together at one time must have been quite surprising to passengers waiting for flights”.

The annual conference follows recent reports that airport chaplains have requested clearer rules regarding tasks, responsibilities and guidelines for chaplaincy ministry due to the increased demands on their time over the last few years. With the rise of terror alerts since September 11, airport chaplains have been faced with ever more frequent requests for chaplaincy support, and have as such requested further guidance on their role at UK airports. Following the alert in August 2006, for example, when a number of arrests were made after a plot to use liquid explosives was uncovered, chaplaincy teams across the country were required to put emergency plans into action, providing passengers with round-the-clock assurance, prayer and emotional guidance.

The new Southampton Airport masterplan was publised in July this year.
The plan, which outlines how the airport plans to expand to meet increasing demand, predicts that in 25 years time, passenger numbers will have grown to around 6 million annually, compared to the 1.5 million that currently travel through the airport's gates every year.
To accommodate this huge growth, the airport will have to expand somewhat, and BAA predicts that to achieve this, 4,000 jobs will be created.
To keep up to date with recent news stories check the official Southampton Airport News Pages

After a £5 million investment into renovating it, Southampton Airport's departure lounge was opened to the public in July.
The lounge is now twice the size it was, and the attractively designed interior houses new catering and seating facilities.
BAA have also invested in extra measures to conserve energy whilst heating a lighting the building.