NEWS: Air Southwest have suspended all flights to Gatwick, and now no longer have any routes to the capital from Cornwall or Devon. Flybe now operate on this route. The airline will now be using these aircraft on an intense twice-daily service from Newquay to Aberdeen.

Air Southwest is the home of Triangular routes: be aware that your flight may stop off along the way to pick up some more passengers, get to your destination with those passengers on board, and then drop some more off before getting back where you started too. There are also milk-run routes, that stop off at, well, quite a lot of places really.

Air Southwest a run over the tarmac to board the Dash 8 at Gatwick

This all leads to a nightmare of organisation, with computer systems at some airports not talking to others. AirSouthwest have found a unique way of getting around this: passgengers for a half-way destination sit on one side of the cabin, and for another place, on another side. It's then easy to check everyone's got off. Mind you, checkin varies enormously too, from the full BA experience (and BA boarding cards) at Gatwick, to the handwritten manifest and boarding cards on a quiet day at Newquay.

London: Air Southwest have now axed the Plymouth-Newquay-London Gatwick-Plymouth triangular route, after many years of operating this three times a day (four in summer).

The aircraft spared from the Gatwick route are now to be used on an unusual and speculative flight to Aberdeen, via Leeds/Bradford, twice a day, leaving Newquay at 0630 and 1555 every day.

The UK's longest "milkrun" flight used to be operated by Air Southwest, running Jersey-Plymouth-Bristol-Manchester, however now there is a triangular route Plymouth-Jersey-Guernsey-Plymouth leaving at 1120, getting to Jersey, and completing the return at 1225 daily (1135 at weekends).

Route Map Air Southwest core triangular routes

Airline schedules change regularly

This information is intended as a guide, but for up to the minute timetables, please consult Air Southwest at airsouthwest.com.

Other milkrun routes include Plymouth-Newquay-Glasgow-Newquay-Plymouth, Plymouth-Newquay-Dublin-Plymouth, Plymouth-Newquay-Cork-Plymouth, Plymouth-Bristol-Manchester-Plymouth (if you take the afternoon flight it avoids the stopover) and Plymouth-Bristol-Leeds Bradford-Bristol-Plymouth (although some days it avoid the Bristol stopoff, either on the way up, or the way down).

Incidentally, a Milkrun Flight is the common term used to denote a flight that stops off at several places along the way to drop off or pick up passengers, while a triangular route means a flight that is a milk run, but which only stops off in two places, before returning to its destination.