If we’re honest with ourselves the B word is a huge driver of woes, no matter what the media and Government says. I’m not for one minute saying it’s the only cause of staff shortages and cancellations but something that’s caused hundreds of thousands to leave and an inability to freely bring people in is only going to compound other problems.
On that basis the utilisation of overseas bases for the SEN flights is a blessing as they aren’t seeing the same level of disruption. Operationally it would be tricky to just send a plane to Gatwick instead given the aircraft will have other non-UK commitments and you could be talking a lot of 261 payouts on both routes. In my opinion a more likely scenario is SEN being a beneficiary of pax being redirected FROM Gatwick or Luton.
There is also the benefit now more than ever of small, quiet airports being attractive. Covid impacts *may* be waning or temporary but the shortages at major airports are probably there to stay for quite some time.