You - and others - simply fail to take into account the fact that you really CAN - with hand luggage only - be on the rail platform 5 minutes after disembarking from the plane at Southend.
Do not assume what I know, read what I say. My own local airport is Prestwick, better connected and cheaper to get to Glasgow via the rail network than Glasgow Airport. My lesson from that? It made little difference as PIK is still dying on it's backside despite excellent connectivity via rail and a new motorway. My background is a marketing analyst and what the public are willing to do versus what the public say are two different things much of the time. LGW and STN are both very well plugged into and connected to the rail network yet both have a different customer profile. My key point is each airport will have a demographic, regardless of ease of access, and that demographic will drive the profile of routes it can sustain. For example easyJet dropping EDI is a clue there. Yes you have a great new local airport, stop being so chippy for a minute and read what I said. It's never going to be a London airport any more than Oxford, LTN and STN are at least within sight of the M25.
That doesn't mean it won't do well as a business, it suggests to me that the suited and booted brigade won't be getting the train all the way to Southend to board easyJet any more than they already do to STN.
Remind me again why SEN is not a good London airport?
Because it's on the coast and very far away. Regardless of how good the trains are, it's
ON THE COAST. People know that sort of thing, that's why I asked if there was any numbers of demographics and region of origin done. The other key piece is inbound / outbound ratio, is most traffic UK holiday makers going abroad in which case is SEN having any impact driving additional custom beyond the locale into London or is it just canniballising STN?