STANSTED - 2

[FRatSTN]

But a lot of areas in the local area you describe are similar distance from both Southend and Stansted. Lets take a look. This is the journey times by road according to Google Earth:

LONDON
SEN: 41.7 mi, 1hr 4 mins
STN: 37.5 mi, 51 mins

BASILDON
SEN: 11.9 mi, 23 mins
STN: 38.9 mi, 46 mins

BRAINTREE
SEN: 34.3 mi, 55 mins
STN: 18.8 mi, 25 mins

BRENTWOOD
SEN: 19.9 mi, 32 mins
STN: 28.2 mi, 33 mins

CANARY WHARF
SEN: 37.8 mi, 54 mins
STN: 35.6 mi, 43 mins

CHELMSFORD
SEN: 19.8 mi, 30 mins
STN: 18.9 mi, 34 mins

COLCHESTER
SEN: 40.8 mi, 51 mins
STN: 32.6 mi, 45 mins

DARTFORD
SEN: 28.7 mi, 44 mins
STN: 39.9 mi, 45 mins

GILLINGHAM (South of Thames Estuary!)
SEN: 45.3 mi, 1 hr 1 min
STN: 56.5 mi, 1 hr 3 mins

HARLOW
SEN: 38.1 mi, 53 mins
STN: 16.6 mi, 24 mins

ROMFORD
SEN: 25.8 mi, 39 mins
STN: 30.5 mi, 37 mins

This is just the local area, going further afield...

CAMBRIDGE
SEN: 72.3 mi, 1 hr 24 mins
STN: 32.3 mi, 40 mins

IPSWICH
SEN: 56.8 mi, 1 hr 8 mins
STN: 48.6 mi, 1 hr 2 mins

KETTERING
SEN: 112 mi, 1 hr 59 mins
STN: 70.9 mi, 1 hr 15 mins

PETERBOROUGH
SEN: 108 mi, 1 hr 54 mins
STN: 66.8 mi, 1 hr 9 mins

NORWICH
SEN: 99.2 mi, 2 hrs 9 mins
STN: 84.3 mi, 1 hr 39 mins

Note also that Cambridge and Peterborough serve Stansted with direct rail links and although some places like Stevenage, Luton, Northampton etc. are closer to Luton Airport, they still come into the Stansted catchment area and a lot further to Southend.

All in all, I think it's fair to say that Southend's catchment area is signficantly smaller than Stansted's. Yes some of the locations are a bit of a distance from Stansted, but for somewhere like Peterbrough for instance, Stansted would be the first choice of airport in terms of distance, despite being not far off 70 miles away.

So I keep my view. EasyJet are shrinking the size of their catchment area by moving traffic to Southend from Stansted, as for most major places outside of Essex and East London, it's significantly further in distance and longer in travelling times to get to Southend Airport. Effectively, EasyJet are losing all those customers in these areas as most will switch to Ryanair services from Stansted, not EasyJet from Luton or especially Southend.