I think that Southend got a real boost few years back when LTN and STN went out of favour a bit.
Now that FR are greatly increasing Ryan Air flightsat STN and Easy Jet seemingly signalling they want to base 30 at LTN building up each year I think for the time being Southend may suffer a bit.
Sure it will come full circle and Southend will see big expansion again in the future.
Nigel