Diversions
While many large airports see diversions as an inconvenience Southend seems to be carving out quite a niche in this area. Of course Southend has been dealing with diversions for years (predominantly due to fog elsewhere) however they are getting more and more diversions due to the rather strict restrictions relating to operating hours and technical restrictions at London City. In fact I cannot remember ever having as many diversions for this reason than there have been in the past 6 months! With another 4 diversions picked up this weekend this has got to be a valuable (all be it not reliable) form of income for Southend.
I think it is fair to say and BA Cityflyer and Cityjet will choose Southend as their first choice in the event of diversion, a not insignificant feather in Southends cap, especially as the diversion count lowered to near zero during the development work. In fact all operators into LCY have used Southend for diversion in the past with the exception of Swiss and Alitalia by my reckoning?! Let's hope Southend can continue to benefit from this bonus revenue!