Originally Posted by
AirportPlanner1
That’s not true, no it wasn’t a bustling hub but they also had a based Britannia 737 year round, Air France a couple of times daily, Aer Lingus at least daily, various overseas-based IT operators heading to Spain/Yugoslavia/Bulgaria/Romania etc, flights to Canada, lots of inbound charters from Scandinavia and a random assortment of short-lived scheduled operators and charters. So nowhere near as bleak as you portray.
STN in the 70's and 80's was pretty much a quiet backwater then just a few sheds and hangar's - a dumping ground for old jets and for maintenance plus a few charters
Channel AW had gone bust by 1972 as had Lloyd International
yes the Vikings from scandinavia stil invaded enmasse on a sunday evening plus some ABC affinity and military charters to the USA and Canada ran in the summers which included ONA World BMA Saturn universal CPair and Wardair BUT the place was very very quiet much of the days
infact it was a treat to see a movement
don't think BY based a 737 there until much later on
cargo started to increase with many 707 and DC8's
it was not until maybe the very late 80's that things slowly began to pick up with Air UK and KLM etc and the new terminal and infrastructure in 1991
the rest is history with Easyjet gaining access by buying GO and massive expansion plus Ryanair buying Buzz and then some