Southend seems to have a small airport mentality here. The airport has scheduled services that arrive late at night so making public transport connections impossible and rather than helping those passengers that would rather stay in the safe confines of the terminal until they can use public transport just kicks them out and tells them to clear off at gone midnight. There could be an argument about a duty of care not to put its passengers in any danger.
The fact that the airport is closed overnight and there is no public transport should be the first thing passengers see when they connect to the Southend website. Then passengers will know not to use the airport if they need to use public transport.
I actually tried to find out what the opening hours were and I had to big deep to find the one line of information. It certainly does not come up via the search facility on the airport website.
I am thinking the posters here that think Southend is reasonable and talk about passengers dossing down in the terminal and making the place untidy, which happens at all airports with late night and early departures, would actually be the first to jump for joy if the terminal went 24/7.
