I am old enough to remember when Stansted couldn't get passengers for love nor money and in later years when Stelios was told by the experts he was joking if he thought flights from Luton would be a success.
I know little about the Southend catchment area but what I do know is if there is a hub airport in South East England that allows me to fly from the far South West (Cornwall is not in England by the way) to somewhere I want to go, then I will use that over a huge airport with five terminals that takes me a week to get through or a two hour drive to Exeter.. Hence my post.