For those of us who live some distance from London, making our way to one of the major London airports in order to catch a flight is not much fun. Fortunately, with the continued growth of Southampton Airport, those annoying journeys to London may be a thing of the past.

Southampton Airport is located between Southampton and Eastleigh, ideally positioned for those driving from London, Portsmouth, Basingstoke, Woking and plenty of other towns and cities throughout Hampshire and the rest of south-east England.

You'll find that the airport has easy access, given that it is close to the M3 motorway, as well as the M27.

Most importantly, flight prices from Southampton are extremely low. The airport is being used as a base by Flybe, one of the UK's leading budget airline operators. Prices here are often up to 60% cheaper than those advertised for flights from the major London airports.

One factor that has put people off flying from Southampton has been the thought that the list of available routes from the airport has been limited. With the airport having expanded rapidly over the past 5 years or so, things have started to change.

It's now possible to fly from Southampton to a number of other UK regional airports, including Aberdeen, Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle.

These routes have become very popular with business travellers, taking advantage of short flight times and the speed of processing at smaller regional airports.

For those looking to use Southampton as a leaving point for holidays, there are cheap flights from Southampton Airport to many European resorts, including a number of locations in Spain and France.

The growth of the airport is undoubtedly having benefits for travellers looking to depart from southern England. The local authorities will need to monitor the situation here, particularly with regard to concerns about environmental damage, but the airport does provide a good alternative.

The aircraft leaving from here tend to be smaller than those departing from Heathrow and Gatwick, but there are some great flight deals to be found.

Southampton Airport is establishing itself as a significant alternative to Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

Thinking about flying from Southampton Airport? You can find out more by reading Keith Barrett's other travel articles. This article may be used by any website publisher, though this resource box must always be included in full.