Phileas Fogg
I would say that I am 'promoting' SEN rather than 'protecting' it and I did rather take your phrase "well not London but such a place as Southend-on-Sea" as dismissing SEN's potential to effectively serve London once the train station is in place.
I'm pleased to see you appreciate some of its good points, although I don't quite see the relevance of your story regarding Heavylift's A300 landing there once - it's only ever going to be a Code 3C runway but that won't be a limiting factor on its aspirations.
Getting back on topic, I don't agree with your view that the travelling public will only accept non-stop flights, as there are many routes within the UK currently which offer one-stop through flights to destination. For example Air Southwest flies to both LGW and LCY with one-stop through flights from Plymouth and Newquay respectively. I agree that, ideally, services should be non-stop but if traffic levels are unlikely initially to make that viable then the one-stop option should be considered whereby two prime destinations can be served at appropraite frequencies. AMS is, incidentally, east of SEN so the travelling public won't need to consider the point you make. I don't accept either that a one-stop routing need be uncompetitive on price.
I'm not just clutching ideas out of thin air on this as I do have something of an inside track on the SEN/CAX/Stobart situation and the thinking at present certainly includes the possibility of a CAX service 'linking to London Southend Airport and beyond' to quote from their latest annual report.
The necessary airport infrastructure at CAX to enable any scheduled services to start, runway and navaid improvements mainly, is reckoned to be about a year away so it will be some time before we shall see the outcome.
Last edited by Expressflight; 11th Jul 2009 at 09:31.