Originally Posted by
jamessh
Southend Airport is owned by Stobart Group not Flybe. London City isn’t as expensive as you think if you take a look at the published landing charges. Southend is a poor move in my opinion. It has poor links to London and more expensive than Gatwick, Stansted and Luton. Heathrow actually would’ve been a smart move. Heathrow are offering relatively cheap landing fees for domestic flights nowadays and Flybe have spare Heathrow slots...
Southend has very good links to London actually, the airport station is dead opposite the terminal, just a one minute walk, with up to 6 trains a hour at peak times to Stratford and Liverpool Street. Much less hassle than the bigger London airports to get through as its only a small airport. I would imagine Stobart have given Blue Islands a very good deal to open this service as a Guernsey link has not been operated for about 20 years or more. Easyjet has been operating a successful link to Jersey using their A319s for the past 7 years, so i hope that BI will do well, although with cheaper fares currently offered i expect it will take some of Aurignys PAX away from that horrible Stansted airport.