SOUTHEND 5
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That link to the Irish Times a post or two back from this one, mentions Flybe and Easyjet competition were a challenge for Aer Lingus Regional.
a. Flybe have moved on
b. Easyjet won't compete on EIDW route
So, in my view Stobart pulling out of airline involvement presents the SEN management opportunity to attract new services to SEN to plug that EIDW demand.
Could you see Cityjet plant a flag in SEN. What about FR could they get 800 series in and out (don't know the STOL performance perhaps B737 drivers on here could comment?)
a. Flybe have moved on
b. Easyjet won't compete on EIDW route
So, in my view Stobart pulling out of airline involvement presents the SEN management opportunity to attract new services to SEN to plug that EIDW demand.
Could you see Cityjet plant a flag in SEN. What about FR could they get 800 series in and out (don't know the STOL performance perhaps B737 drivers on here could comment?)
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Talking of SEN management, isn't it about time we had a few more job changes? These were posted yesterday as available jobs:
- Head of Commercial Development
- Head of Aviation Business Development
- Commercial Manager (Surface Access)
- Marketing Manager
LINK: Head of Commercial Development job with London Southend Airport | 449566
Revolving door syndrome again...
- Head of Commercial Development
- Head of Aviation Business Development
- Commercial Manager (Surface Access)
- Marketing Manager
LINK: Head of Commercial Development job with London Southend Airport | 449566
Revolving door syndrome again...
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So, in my view Stobart pulling out of airline involvement presents the SEN management opportunity to attract new services to SEN to plug that EIDW demand.
Could you see Cityjet plant a flag in SEN. What about FR could they get 800 series in and out (don't know the STOL performance perhaps B737 drivers on here could comment?)
As for Cityjet ? I can't now see any airline now setting up a base at Southend. Any airline route planner following what has happened to Southend over the last 18 months is going to be thinking that Southend will not give them anything apart from a loss.
I can't help but remember what Easyjet did at East Midlands Airport after being there for years but this time there is no Ryanair to step into their shoes.
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SEN is basically EZY's only safe haven where it is unlikely they will be attacked by competition. So long as the locals continue wanting to head to the sun, EZY will remain and both airline and airport will do well out of it.
Also in the next year or two EZY will have to use SEN for any new inbound flights between about 7-9am as everywhere else is full.
Also in the next year or two EZY will have to use SEN for any new inbound flights between about 7-9am as everywhere else is full.
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Also in the next year or two EZY will have to use SEN for any new inbound flights between about 7-9am as everywhere else is full.
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UK AirRail 2015 | Interesting viewpoint from Southend that too many rail passengers would harm car park revenue at Southend. Might explain why the Stobart coach service for early and late departures never happened.
London Southend Airport
Glyn Jones, Chief Executive Officer, Southend Airport took a contrary view on the need for a national policy presenting the station scheme at Southend Airport as an example of on how the airport had funded and delivered with no public sector funding as it considered rail access so integral to the new airports business. They note that research has shown that demand can be suppressed by up to 80% if rail passengers are required to change to reach the airport which led to the station being constructed immediately opposite the terminal. This location is considered a key reason for the high rail mode share of 33%, increasing by up to 2% per year.
Jones added a note of caution that smaller regional airports rely on car parking revenue to sustain their operations so they would find it difficult to encourage significant mode shift in the current market.
Lastly, Jones was keen to note that having constructed the station, the airport had management and oversight of the entire passenger environment between aeroplane and train, allowing the airport to oversee and provide high quality customer service throughout the campus – Transporting Cities had a rather different experience.
Glyn Jones, Chief Executive Officer, Southend Airport took a contrary view on the need for a national policy presenting the station scheme at Southend Airport as an example of on how the airport had funded and delivered with no public sector funding as it considered rail access so integral to the new airports business. They note that research has shown that demand can be suppressed by up to 80% if rail passengers are required to change to reach the airport which led to the station being constructed immediately opposite the terminal. This location is considered a key reason for the high rail mode share of 33%, increasing by up to 2% per year.
Jones added a note of caution that smaller regional airports rely on car parking revenue to sustain their operations so they would find it difficult to encourage significant mode shift in the current market.
Lastly, Jones was keen to note that having constructed the station, the airport had management and oversight of the entire passenger environment between aeroplane and train, allowing the airport to oversee and provide high quality customer service throughout the campus – Transporting Cities had a rather different experience.
LTNman
I'm impressed on your digging out the UK Rail 2015 conference details.
I see Glyn Jones comments as meaning that an airport without a current direct rail link might be reluctant to press for one as it would mean that 33% or more of their users would switch from arriving by car to rail. Such a "significant mode switch" would certainly cause a huge drop in car parking revenues at such airports. I didn't see his comments as relating specifically to SEN and its current situation.
I would be surprised if SEN were willing to trade the future provision of early and late trains (and its consequent negative impact on SEN's attractiveness as things stand today) just to retain car parking fees from those airport users who would otherwise use those early or late trains. Mind you, we are talking about SEN so I wouldn't entirely rule out such reasoning, however misguided you or I may think it to be. There was obviously some reason why Stobart coaches have not been employed to provide a London link outside of the current train timetable when there is an obvious demand for something of that sort.
I'm impressed on your digging out the UK Rail 2015 conference details.
I see Glyn Jones comments as meaning that an airport without a current direct rail link might be reluctant to press for one as it would mean that 33% or more of their users would switch from arriving by car to rail. Such a "significant mode switch" would certainly cause a huge drop in car parking revenues at such airports. I didn't see his comments as relating specifically to SEN and its current situation.
I would be surprised if SEN were willing to trade the future provision of early and late trains (and its consequent negative impact on SEN's attractiveness as things stand today) just to retain car parking fees from those airport users who would otherwise use those early or late trains. Mind you, we are talking about SEN so I wouldn't entirely rule out such reasoning, however misguided you or I may think it to be. There was obviously some reason why Stobart coaches have not been employed to provide a London link outside of the current train timetable when there is an obvious demand for something of that sort.
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Diversions
While many large airports see diversions as an inconvenience Southend seems to be carving out quite a niche in this area. Of course Southend has been dealing with diversions for years (predominantly due to fog elsewhere) however they are getting more and more diversions due to the rather strict restrictions relating to operating hours and technical restrictions at London City. In fact I cannot remember ever having as many diversions for this reason than there have been in the past 6 months! With another 4 diversions picked up this weekend this has got to be a valuable (all be it not reliable) form of income for Southend.
I think it is fair to say and BA Cityflyer and Cityjet will choose Southend as their first choice in the event of diversion, a not insignificant feather in Southends cap, especially as the diversion count lowered to near zero during the development work. In fact all operators into LCY have used Southend for diversion in the past with the exception of Swiss and Alitalia by my reckoning?! Let's hope Southend can continue to benefit from this bonus revenue!
I think it is fair to say and BA Cityflyer and Cityjet will choose Southend as their first choice in the event of diversion, a not insignificant feather in Southends cap, especially as the diversion count lowered to near zero during the development work. In fact all operators into LCY have used Southend for diversion in the past with the exception of Swiss and Alitalia by my reckoning?! Let's hope Southend can continue to benefit from this bonus revenue!
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I am not sure it is a feather in the cap when those airlines would rather not be at SEN and are not prepared to offer any services from Southend.
While Southend has the space to take in the diversions it doesn't have the staff as the staffing levels are set for the planned programme. This leads to some very long delays in getting the passengers off the aircraft if more than a couple of diversions arrive in quick succession.
It is a sad state of affairs that the only thing us Southend supporters can get excited about these days are diversions. What Southend needs is new routes and new airlines and at the moment Southend is going in the wrong direction while all the other London Airports are expanding.
While Southend has the space to take in the diversions it doesn't have the staff as the staffing levels are set for the planned programme. This leads to some very long delays in getting the passengers off the aircraft if more than a couple of diversions arrive in quick succession.
It is a sad state of affairs that the only thing us Southend supporters can get excited about these days are diversions. What Southend needs is new routes and new airlines and at the moment Southend is going in the wrong direction while all the other London Airports are expanding.
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Re: post of 21DEC on sale of airline
I completely had missed this article from the Irish Times.
Any sale of Stobart air operation is headed one way in my view, to Flybe. Being the biggest regional airline in these islands by some way it would seem like the natural purchaser. Equally, but ironically Flybe despite being a franchise provider to Stobart Air for its Southend ops came in to provide head on competition on many already operated by Stobart Air, prime example Cardiff Dublin.
AerLingus regional have developed a strong operation principally from Dublin feeding Aer Lingus transatlantic operations and succeeding head to head with Ryanair on busy Ireland UK routes. The mix of point to point, transfer traffic and business schedules have weathered the storm and I can see Flybe in its improving state going after this business...
Any sale of Stobart air operation is headed one way in my view, to Flybe. Being the biggest regional airline in these islands by some way it would seem like the natural purchaser. Equally, but ironically Flybe despite being a franchise provider to Stobart Air for its Southend ops came in to provide head on competition on many already operated by Stobart Air, prime example Cardiff Dublin.
AerLingus regional have developed a strong operation principally from Dublin feeding Aer Lingus transatlantic operations and succeeding head to head with Ryanair on busy Ireland UK routes. The mix of point to point, transfer traffic and business schedules have weathered the storm and I can see Flybe in its improving state going after this business...
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I am not sure it is a feather in the cap when those airlines would rather not be at SEN and are not prepared to offer any services from Southend.
While Southend has the space to take in the diversions it doesn't have the staff as the staffing levels are set for the planned programme. This leads to some very long delays in getting the passengers off the aircraft if more than a couple of diversions arrive in quick succession.
It is a sad state of affairs that the only thing us Southend supporters can get excited about these days are diversions. What Southend needs is new routes and new airlines and at the moment Southend is going in the wrong direction while all the other London Airports are expanding.
While Southend has the space to take in the diversions it doesn't have the staff as the staffing levels are set for the planned programme. This leads to some very long delays in getting the passengers off the aircraft if more than a couple of diversions arrive in quick succession.
It is a sad state of affairs that the only thing us Southend supporters can get excited about these days are diversions. What Southend needs is new routes and new airlines and at the moment Southend is going in the wrong direction while all the other London Airports are expanding.
and of course the airport would rather have the stands full with scheduled flights rather than diversions. However...my point was in these lean times when the balance sheet is showing a loss it is not going to do any harm, that was all!On your point regarding staffing, well doesn't every business man only to the level required? I can assure you this had led to some horror stories with diversions into Stansted for example. I have first hand experience of this, and I'm guessung this is why CFE made Southend their nominated diversion airport Southend again once the development was complete. At the end of the day it is a unplanned diversion so crews don't expect the same level of service. I think also from anecdotal evidence I have heard Southend seems to have coped quite well with recent big diversion days in servicing the aircraft?!
So in summary, no cake will be cut celebrating the number of diversions but it sure is revenue that the airport will not be turning away!
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'If' and that's a rather massive 'if' that Flybe get involved, I hope they see sense and decide against sticking the Dash 8s on a Dublin route and go for the Embraer. Put some bloody competition up to the Cityjet and BA Flyer strangle hold grip those boys are running outta city to Dublin.
If they plan the schedule properly and cheap seat fares than the cityjet or BA seat outta City to Dublin, they will clean up on that route.
18:30 or 19:00 rush hour commuter flight from London to Dublin allows enough time for pax to travel out from London Liverpool St station.
Combination of rail fare plus Flybe seat fare plus TIME taken to get to SEN needs to be attractive to persuade pax to shift from City airport.
These are pax who prefer to avoid the Ryanair experiences of standing queuing in priority then ushered though boarding only to queue in holding area stairwells, to then only be ushered out to base of aircraft steps to queue further until some minutes later being ushered onto the bloody aircraft. It's terrible! Oh, and have you seen what can only be described as pure chaos and car crash security queue delays at Stansted - try that experience for a laugh, it's not pleasant.
With London Bridge station all over the place the rail service to Gatwick is unreliable at the moment so pax hoping for Aer Lingus from Gatwick to Dublin is a real mission.
Heathrow? You're having a laugh, right!
Leaves City, and Cityjet have had a lot of service problems of late, such as aircraft being 'delayed' at Dublin so has knock on for the inbound to City. They tell you no further info other than it was delayed. No why or explanations. It's happened to me regularly now over past couple of months. Unreliable.
BA CityFlyer is very expensive from City to Dublin, so there is definite room for Flybe to competitively challenge BA on that route with a Embraer service from SEN to Dublin but needs clever scheduling and a price point which competes aggressively.
Fri 18:30/19:00
Sat 09:00
Inbound Sun arrival slots for 18:30/19:00
They'd go head to head with the LCY schedules, get a price war going!
Win, win for Flybe, for SEN, for pax, for SEN surrounding economy. Sometimes you need to 'buy in' the business in order to establish a solid foundation for future successful growth and future broadened expansion. I firmly believe SEN needs some lateral fresh thinking, they need some special secret sauce but once they stumble upon it they need to not flup it up AGAIN!
If they plan the schedule properly and cheap seat fares than the cityjet or BA seat outta City to Dublin, they will clean up on that route.
18:30 or 19:00 rush hour commuter flight from London to Dublin allows enough time for pax to travel out from London Liverpool St station.
Combination of rail fare plus Flybe seat fare plus TIME taken to get to SEN needs to be attractive to persuade pax to shift from City airport.
These are pax who prefer to avoid the Ryanair experiences of standing queuing in priority then ushered though boarding only to queue in holding area stairwells, to then only be ushered out to base of aircraft steps to queue further until some minutes later being ushered onto the bloody aircraft. It's terrible! Oh, and have you seen what can only be described as pure chaos and car crash security queue delays at Stansted - try that experience for a laugh, it's not pleasant.
With London Bridge station all over the place the rail service to Gatwick is unreliable at the moment so pax hoping for Aer Lingus from Gatwick to Dublin is a real mission.
Heathrow? You're having a laugh, right!
Leaves City, and Cityjet have had a lot of service problems of late, such as aircraft being 'delayed' at Dublin so has knock on for the inbound to City. They tell you no further info other than it was delayed. No why or explanations. It's happened to me regularly now over past couple of months. Unreliable.
BA CityFlyer is very expensive from City to Dublin, so there is definite room for Flybe to competitively challenge BA on that route with a Embraer service from SEN to Dublin but needs clever scheduling and a price point which competes aggressively.
Fri 18:30/19:00
Sat 09:00
Inbound Sun arrival slots for 18:30/19:00
They'd go head to head with the LCY schedules, get a price war going!
Win, win for Flybe, for SEN, for pax, for SEN surrounding economy. Sometimes you need to 'buy in' the business in order to establish a solid foundation for future successful growth and future broadened expansion. I firmly believe SEN needs some lateral fresh thinking, they need some special secret sauce but once they stumble upon it they need to not flup it up AGAIN!
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18:30 or 19:00 rush hour commuter flight from London to Dublin allows enough time for pax to travel out from London Liverpool St station.
There is a market for Dublin as has already been seen but that is probably more for the local area than London. Once an airline needs to attract London passengers then competition from other London airports kicks in.
Last edited by Pain in the R's; 28th Dec 2015 at 08:28.
C2C Rail Shuttle Bus
Interesting to see in today's Evening Echo that C2C have been in discussions with Southend Council and SEN (so it says) with a view to introducing a shuttle bus between one of their stations on the Fenchurch Street to Southend line and the airport.
I suppose Southend Central would be the obvious choice and the journey time from that station to SEN would be about 10 minutes. The first train from London on that line arrives at Southend Central at 05:54 (37 minutes earlier the first to arrive at SEN) and the last departs at 23:35 (30 minutes later than the last from SEN). Whether C2C see those facts as being the driver for this idea or whether the intention is to satisfy an existing demand on their line throughout the day is not stated.
If nothing else this story highlights the inability/unwillingness for more than three years of the SEN management to do something about the lack of any public transport arriving from London before 06:31 or to London later than 23:05. I really do feel that this fact cannot be anything but a negative factor when trying to attract new operators to SEN.
I suppose Southend Central would be the obvious choice and the journey time from that station to SEN would be about 10 minutes. The first train from London on that line arrives at Southend Central at 05:54 (37 minutes earlier the first to arrive at SEN) and the last departs at 23:35 (30 minutes later than the last from SEN). Whether C2C see those facts as being the driver for this idea or whether the intention is to satisfy an existing demand on their line throughout the day is not stated.
If nothing else this story highlights the inability/unwillingness for more than three years of the SEN management to do something about the lack of any public transport arriving from London before 06:31 or to London later than 23:05. I really do feel that this fact cannot be anything but a negative factor when trying to attract new operators to SEN.
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c2c rail shuttle bus
If, as I hope, something comes of this, some passengers may see this as a better option for getting to London.
For the sake of a ten minute or so bus ride to whichever Southend station is used, they will be getting a faster journey on modern air-conditioned trains and the fare is cheaper too!
The downside is that connectivity for onward travel is not so good from Fenchurch Street, although I believe that some late night, early morning and weekend c2c services use Liverpool Street anyway.
Best wishes to all for 2016
For the sake of a ten minute or so bus ride to whichever Southend station is used, they will be getting a faster journey on modern air-conditioned trains and the fare is cheaper too!
The downside is that connectivity for onward travel is not so good from Fenchurch Street, although I believe that some late night, early morning and weekend c2c services use Liverpool Street anyway.
Best wishes to all for 2016
