This is the issue with Southend. It still has that "new" factor to a lot of passengers and when that wares off in a few years, people will naturally go back to the most convenient option, which for many as both Expressflight and LTNman have somewhat agreed to, is Stansted.
It's a bit like our village. For years it had a Co-op only. Think of that as the Stansted, the more expensive but easier, slightly more central location in the village. Eventually an Aldi opens a 1/4 of a mile down the road. Think of that as the Southend, the cheaper and quieter option but slightly more diffucult to get to. When Aldi opens, the Co-op loses a lot of its customers for several weeks/months but customers do and have returned for the convenience, even if they prefer the Aldi. I think it's exactly the same principal here but just on a much larger scale, and that transfer of passengers back to their original (Stansted) will take several years as opposed to months. Of course for some, Southend is more convenient and a number of people will continue to use it into the much longer term future.
That's why I think in time, EasyJet may well regret ever cutting back at Stansted. The only explanation to them axing such popular routes from Stansted like Alicante, Barcelona and Faro is because they want to limit the competition and maximise the potential of those routes that now go from Southend. I don't think they suddenly became unprofitable after around a decade of flying.
Already the Belfast route has been drecreased to a once daily flight from Southend, clearly they aren't getting the response they wanted from business travellers, and if ALC, BCN and FAO were still at Stansted, I think EasyJet will not be performing half as well as they do at Southend. I think the cuts are purely to maximise the potential of Southend by limiting the competition from the bigger and more powerfull Stansted.
Last edited by FRatSTN; 29th Mar 2013 at 09:16.