Southend -Uncertain future (merged)

[HOODED]

Lite, I can't see Southend hosting 733s on any serious flights as the runway is only 5200ft/1600m which would severly restrict range/payload in the summer.

[boredcounter]

Lite

I worked at SEN in the late 80's, and have fond memories of Orion 732 operating before that. 1-11, Caravelles and 146's of both freight and pax variety operated during my time. I believe the rules have changed somewhat since then. If I run performance (in-house) for my CRJ's the programme tilts and threatens to phone the boss!

FlyBe did indeed operate charters to the CIs from SEN with DHC-8s

I have not been to SEN for about 2 years, and then the terminal was worse than in '89, a real shame.

It is, as an Essex boy, in my opinion, much nearer to London than LHR or LGW. You can clear SEN in 40 paces, not minutes. Alas the nearest station is Rochford, about (guess) two miles and a bit away. DM still grew the BLL-LGW route from SEN with DHC-7s.

There was talk of a rail interchange, any news.

SEN (was) is a cracking field, once I believe the fifth bussiest in the UK, and wasted now, very wasted.

No, it is not an MSE or LYX, it has a fair catchment, that could poach from all the London airports South of BHX,CVT and EMA on a shorthaul basis.

Car parks would have to be (very) multi-level, the runway would have to grow by a great deal, maint facilities would be very limited (as I remember 1 Large and two useable hangars + RFS)
but cracking potential, wasted as a Bizjet hive for London.

Good luck SEN, held back by the council, that once owned you, the A127 and A13 and BR.


Bored

[boredcounter]

Red4

Hey, you tease.

Do you have the real link to the Southend Evening Echo?

No, not taking the 'P', honest, but as you force my hand, here goes.

I am a 'Shrimper' (closet) so said thread, is golddust.

All I got was some bussiness in Essex page...............

Need Fix mate, post the real one, please. I can read SUFC web pages till they come out of my ears, need the local media to bring home reality.


Please
Bored

Ps Happy New Year

[Golf Charlie Charlie]

Who even remembers Channel Airways today ?

[Red Four]

BC
The address has moved to 'archives' now, but it does not appear to work as a direct link. Go to the archive page and search Date 19 December 2003, then 'Essex - Business' and the titles appear.


Echo Archive

4

[surely not]

I cannot imagine that SEN will rise from the ashes of its past.

Its heyday was too long ago and the economics of operating niche services from SEN just don't stack up.

It doesn't have a significant local business catchment area, therefore it would be looking at London bound passengers and it is not going to be able to compete with LTN, LGW, SOU or even good ol' Biggin on the bump as they all offer the opportunity to operate full loads for 733 and similar with the fares to match. Plus with the exception of Biggin, they all have good links straight to London without having to catch a taxi to a Station a couple of miles away.

LCY is unique and stands alone for convenience and that is why it will be able to operate with premium fares making smaller capacity aircraft viable.

Unless SEN gets a significant runway extension then, IMO, it needs to look to the biz jet and engineering sectors to maintain its viability.

[Lite]

surely not, East Midlands Airport does not have a railway station on-site or in fact it doesn't have a railway station within 20 minutes drive of it.

Similarly, there are plenty of international passengers who use EMA who to get to Derby or Nottingham must put up with an hour bus ride, or a once hourly 20 minute ride to Loughborough Train Station, that only operates between 7am and 7pm.

Surely, if Southend could put everything in place, such as the ILS, the runway extension and organise maybe four buses an hour (if the railway station is 5 minutes away 1 bus could give 4 roundtrips) there would be scope to bring SEN a low-co.

So can anyone answer my earlier questions.

[surely not]

I would think that CVT is a more comparable example than EMA. CVT also suffers from well developed existing airports nearby and a runway that is too short ( though it is some 700 feet longer than SEN).

It has carved out a niche as an airport for mail flights and exec a/c .

The fact is that whilst money could be spent upgrading SEN facilities, it is unlikely that it would be able to generate sufficient extra business to justify the expenditure.

[Lite]

But surely if the owners of Coventry are prepared to upgrade their existing facilities to bring in a new low-cost airline, even if this new airline is only basing three 131-seat Boeing 737-500s, then why should Southend not look at attracting existing or start up low-cost airlines.

There is no way a new airline could effectively establish a base at Stansted now, its becoming congested, and no airline could grow to the same size of Ryanair or EasyJet at Stansted, and its becoming the same way at Luton.

Southend is within such a distance of London to possibly make it an attractive alternative for a low-cost start up.

If anyone could please help me with my earlier questions, again it would be appreciated!

[**777lover**]

Hi,

I live roughly 3 miles from the threshold of 06 in a town called Hadleigh. Now there are a good hundred thousand people in the area 30 mile radius of Southend that would benefit massivly from an expansion.

To awnser 'lites' question Southends terminal is a tiny thing no bigger than a large hall. It has a neat flight operations area with bar and veiw over the airfield, though this is only avaliable to pilots and staff of the airport. It has a cafe with seating for maybe 60 people (?) and one check in desk. It has toilets and some information on the airport in the entrance. A gate is non existant with passengers and crew just walking out of a door and onto the plane. The whole thing in my opinion is in need of a makeover to make it meet these days passenger requirements.

There are several hangers one owned by air livery and the others i believe owned (or fromally) by Heavylift. Flightline is the only airline known to be based at SEN and this doesn't offer regular passenger flights. The airport has recently had a shopping area built near it and there is some room maybe for expansion but not enough. You would more than likely need to knock down some of the hangers to make room for expansion but i doubt this would ever happen!

At the moment their are several planes stored at southend notably HZ-123 a boeing 707, a 737 TF-ATL belonging to ATA Brazil and also 4 BAE 146s that used to belong to Air China that i think have been sold by Flightline to another carrier. In conclusion SEN seems, only at the moment to allow airlines to bring in their planes to dump or to give a respray. SEN is also the main diversion airport for STN.

I personally think it would be fantastic if SEN could get an expansion and although i understand completely the opinion of the church they are getting a lot for a simple 50m move. This opinion may be coming from an aircraft enthusiast but i do genuinly think it would benefit lots of people.

Thanks Dave 14

[LGS6753]

Go east from SEN and what do you find? - sea.
Go south from SEN and what do you find? - sea.
Go north from SEN and what do you find? - fairly empty countryside.
Only to the west are there any people (potential passengers). Also to the west are STN, LTN, LCY & LHR, of which at least the last three are surrounded on all sides by potential passengers.

Apart from environmental (noise) concerns, there are no advantages in developing coastal airports. By definition their catchment area is limited.
And the access to SEN is, from memory, round a fairly busy urban ring road. Not ideal from an access point of view. On the contrary, STN, LTN, EMA, LGW, BHX, even COV have local motorway access within a couple of miles.
These are issues that a sensible loco will consider before investing its limited resources in a new hub.
Sorry, SEN, the answer's maintenance, flight training, aircraft storage, and servicing the direct catchment area only.

[Lite]

The journey time on an average service from London's Fenchurch Street Station to Southend East Station is admittedly 60 minutes, after taking a bus which will probably take about 10 minutes, however the expected journey time if you want to take a train from Luton involves waiting for a shuttle bus followed by a 30 minute ride by a specially organised service by Thameslink.

If operator C2C saw there to be a benefit in launching non-stop services to Southend East could easily be done in about 30 minutes. I have seen people fly from EMA, wait for the once hourly AirLine Shuttle bus and then take connections of up to 90 minutes for trains to Sheffield, Shrewsbury and Coventry.

Presumably if Ryanair can attract the number of passengers for daily flights to cities like Friedrichshafen and Forli, then there would be a benefit of spending money to establish Southend as an alternative London airport. And, one would think that if Coventry can set it all up so quickly, then so could SEN.

Just a thought. And also, is there a dedicated email address for SEN?

[matspart3]

Lite
Wrong railway line! The Southend/Liverpool St line runs past the Aiport boundary and has a train every 20 minutes throughout the day. The journey time is 45-55 mins. The Airport operator wanted to build a station some years ago and I suspect they're still looking to pursue this option...in the interim, a shuttle service to the existing local stations (Rochford, Prittlewell, Southend Victoria) would be no more than 10 minutes.

The terminal had a facelift about 10 years ago, it's not huge but probably adequate for short haul commuter stuff.

Haven't looked in detail, but I assume moving the localiser and controlling the road in the 06 undershoot may add a few more meters to the declared distances and meet the new RESA requirements....it'll still be longer than LCY.

Bizarrely, a large number of LCY inbounds (all those via CLN)route virtually overhead SEN. The flight time would be 8-10 minutes shorter and the pax could probably be in Central London quicker than on the DLR. In ATC terms, this would also possibly reduce the congestion in the TMA. SEN has an excellent weather record, without the performance/crosswind limitations of LCY. They have Uncategorised ILS (due to lack of Approach Lights I believe?) and Radar, albeit Primary only.

In the 80's and 90's there were various summer IT operators using 737's (Orion, Monarch, Air Malta, Viva?), 1-11's (BIA), Caravelles (Hispania) and Princess Air with their awful pink 146.
Don't know how A320, 734, 757 etc. performance compares, but the catchmentment area for the bucket and spade brigade encompasses a large chunk of Essex and stretches to East London. The A13 and A127 are no worse than the M11, M1 to STN and LTN.

With limited infrastructural investment, surely SEN could be a viable alternative to LCY and serve a section of the charter and loco markets.

Hope it happens!

[TopBunk]

matspart3

I learned to fly at SEN in the mid 80s and well remember the weekly (?) Sunday summer Air Malta 737-200's rotating off 24 just by the last turn off (near Southend Flying Club). Quite a sight they were to a fresh PPL'er.

If I recall correctly tho', they used to only hop across to Manston to refuel for the trip to Malta. Indeed, the direct destinations were quite restrictive due to the runway length. To operate non-stop A320 flights of 2.5 hours to the Med in a 1-class A320 with 180-seats would I would think require lengthening the runway, not just relocating the LLZ aerial.

Commuter flights in a RJ100/146 would obviously be fine.

HNY

[ELondonPax]

Matspart3, I don’t think that your argument, that Southend can complete with LCY, is viable.

The primary market for the carriers using LCY is the City and Canary Wharf area. Users of LCY are much more time sensitive than they are price sensitive. The whole modus operandi at LCY is geared to getting you off the plane and out of the terminal in less than ten minutes - and they do it - and they do it consistently. From the door of the airport you can jump into a cab and be in Canary Wharf in less than ten minutes and the City in less than twenty. You cannot compete with those times by landing at Southend.

Southend may be able to carve a market with the low cost carriers, but no way can it compete with the niche that LCY has.

[Lite]

I don't think that Southend will take passengers away from London City, but I think it can become a viable alternative to other low-cost airports in the London area.

If the airport could expand its runway, expand its terminal building and perhaps make some sort of make-shift parkway for stopping trains (I can't pretend to know how long it takes to build a train station!) to attract a new operator then I think it could do well.

But do people think its viable? I cant even find a SEN website or email address.

[surely not]

Lite, there are a lot of ifs, and a lot of cost in your dream. I seriously doubt that the amount of traffic justifies the money being spent at SEN when for the same bucks at LTN or STN they can improve facilities that are already far better.

Topbunk is correct when he says that the operators you mentioned always had a trade off, either restricted load available, or a tech stop not long after take-off at a proper airport to get enough fuel to carry on.

It's a nice dream, but it doesn't work financially.

[Memetic]

Lite...

Here you go Lite:

http://www.southendairport.net/

Did you really look? 1st result on Google.

[James / dunno]

hmm...

I don't consider Southend like an airport that transports passengers but SEN is very cheap for the mantenience works that airliners require. It is there that the business is running! And I'm pretty sure about that. Of course, that won't be enough to support Southend
Cheers
James