I thought the expansion of the terminal was already underway. So why would expanding the terminal be better if left for a while as extensions to terminals take more than a few months to complete so would then impact on next year’s passengers when the terminal could have already been finished.
Small is beautiful and efficient but all airports want more and more passengers as they don’t really want to be a small airport but a big airport. No doubt the supporters here will look for constant growth and will be disappointed if it flattens out. Then, as what happened at Luton, the car hire car park which was a short walk from the terminal becomes a bus ride way. The long term car park which again was just a 1 minutes walk becomes a bus ride away to the other side of the airport and then the advantages of being small will be quietly forgotten.
Small won’t be so good when the fog comes down and Southend’s CAT 1 ILS is not up to the task. In my younger days I used to listen to my air band radio on foggy evenings hoping that the fog would stay away for just one more hour, then that was it, as the airport was shut down for what seemed like forever but was normally mid-morning the next day.
No doubt someone will reply that Southend is hardly affected by fog but it will be and then the advantages of using Southend will be forgotten by those passengers caught up in the chaos of a terminal that is bursting at the seams.
Last edited by LTNman; 16th Sep 2012 at 19:43.