Originally Posted by
davidjohnson6
Southend-Caen looks to be all about Brits going to Normandy for leisure at child-friendly times. Based on flight schedule, difficult to see demand for any other kind of demographic.
Isn't it potentially also about French people from Normandy who want to come to London and whose existing alternatives are basically backtracking to Paris, or taking a ferry?
I'd see most of the new destinations as focusing on inbound-to-London traffic rather than outbound, serving the overall London market rather than just the Essex catchment. Apart from anything else, the cost of advertising these routes effectively in the wider London market would be very high. The schedules (aircraft overnighting in ANR and RNS) are clearly designed for non-UK-originating passengers.
It's going to be very interesting to see the effect on CityJet, and any potential reaction. Unlike some other LCY routes, Antwerp is less driven by financial-services traffic heading for the City, so a cheaper offer through SEN is likely to be quite attractive to the market.
Overall these destinations make reasonable sense to me, although I am still a bit puzzled by a once-daily mid-morning CGN schedule, which doesn't seem attractive to business and which faces competition for leisure travellers from other London airports.