SOUTHEND - 4

[Skipness One Echo]

Southend is by FAR the most pleasant to use of all the London airports.

Well that depends on how well London City is doing and avoiding an off day let's be honest.

OK am I alone in thinking that very few seriously see SEN as a London airport? No disrespect to a good development for the local area but it's no more a London airport than Manston or Oxford. Southend-on-Sea may do well out of it coupled with better connections for local holiday makers and businesses but for the love of God, if you guys actually were to become a "London" airport, the customer experience would tank dramatically!
The proof of the pudding is the profile of the users. I am guessing local, outbound and leisure predominate,can anyone link to some numbers?

[EssexMan61]

Yes - of course - London City is the only "real" London airport. But why pick on Southend (South Essex) as against Stansted (North Essex), Luton (Bedfordshire), or Gatwick (West Sussex!!!). Even Heathrow - in the London Borough of Hounslow - is arguably in Middlesex.


So - Mr. Skipness - which of the aforementioned airports (aside from City) is most convenient for the Canary Wharf / City sector?? Yes - I think that would be London Southend - no?? Should we try some comparable trips from Luton / Gatwick / Stansted? Stansted may put in a good shout - IF you want to go direct to Liverpool Street and not Docklands / Canary Wharf. With the Southend Vic. line interchange at Stratford you are bang in the middle of all the East London / City options. If you are heading for the joys of Kings Cross or Vauxhall then obviously Luton / Gatwick would win out.


You - and others - simply fail to take into account the fact that you really CAN - with hand luggage only - be on the rail platform 5 minutes after disembarking from the plane at Southend. I have done it many times!!! Yes - I know that you are then at the whim of Abellio Greater Anglia - but compare that to where you would be 5 minutes after disembarkation at Stansted / Luton / Gatwick??? Probably still in the immigration queue!!

[cumbrianboy]

National Rail, London Stansted Airport - Liverpool Street: 47 mins. Off peak return (valid for 1 month): £34

National Rail, London Southend Airport - Liverpool Street: 53 mins. Off peak return (valid for month): £23

So, it takes 5 mins longer on the train, but the journey from aircraft to train is considerably less at SEN than STN, and at SEN the train is £11 cheaper …

Remind me again why SEN is not a good London airport?

[Skipness One Echo]

You - and others - simply fail to take into account the fact that you really CAN - with hand luggage only - be on the rail platform 5 minutes after disembarking from the plane at Southend.

Do not assume what I know, read what I say. My own local airport is Prestwick, better connected and cheaper to get to Glasgow via the rail network than Glasgow Airport. My lesson from that? It made little difference as PIK is still dying on it's backside despite excellent connectivity via rail and a new motorway. My background is a marketing analyst and what the public are willing to do versus what the public say are two different things much of the time. LGW and STN are both very well plugged into and connected to the rail network yet both have a different customer profile. My key point is each airport will have a demographic, regardless of ease of access, and that demographic will drive the profile of routes it can sustain. For example easyJet dropping EDI is a clue there. Yes you have a great new local airport, stop being so chippy for a minute and read what I said. It's never going to be a London airport any more than Oxford, LTN and STN are at least within sight of the M25.
That doesn't mean it won't do well as a business, it suggests to me that the suited and booted brigade won't be getting the train all the way to Southend to board easyJet any more than they already do to STN.

Remind me again why SEN is not a good London airport?

Because it's on the coast and very far away. Regardless of how good the trains are, it's ON THE COAST. People know that sort of thing, that's why I asked if there was any numbers of demographics and region of origin done. The other key piece is inbound / outbound ratio, is most traffic UK holiday makers going abroad in which case is SEN having any impact driving additional custom beyond the locale into London or is it just canniballising STN?

[cumbrianboy]

That's a fair point, but there are other issues at play here. I would suspect the easy jet route to EDI was dropped not because the suited brigade don't want to go to SEN, but a single daily flight on a route which should easily be doable for the suits as a day trip doesn't work, and I suspect it is the business traffic that drives these routes and keeps them going so a single daily was sort of always a bit of a risk.

it seems to me the SEN is not in the near future going to be seen as a major London airport in the way Gatwick is, but this is as much to do with the limited capacity of the airport. Let's face it, 99% of the country have never used London City and probably never will, but it's still a London airport it just serves its own niche.

In addition, SEN is finding and will continue to develop it's own niche. Not everyone wants to go central London and for the east parts of the city SEN is a great alternative.

For routes like EDI however it's a frequency / capacity issue. Now I would suspect a regional with a 50-70 seat aircraft operating 2-3 daily returns would work beautifully for something like EDI - SEN.

And so what if it's on the coast? Gatwick is half way to brighton - it's just an awareness issue and the more people that use SEN the more it will be understood.

I'm not into one airport vs another, it's a fruitless exercise I am just saying SEN is just as good an alternative for many parts of London and it has a role to play … and yes teething problems aside it's got off to a good start

[EssexMan61]

With the greatest of respect - I must still argue with you SOE. Southend Airport is actually a few kilometres away from the coast - but what difference does that make? Stansted is in the North Essex countryside - Luton is in Bedfordshire - Gatwick is in the jolly nice area of West Sussex. Perhaps you would care to publish how far away Stansted, Luton, Gatwick, and Heathrow are from the Canary Wharf centre of London's financial district?


WHY is Southend any less of a London airport than Luton / Stansted / Gatwick? Let's be honest - they are ALL way out side of London - why just pick on Southend?


With regard to being chippy - you do seem to have an anti-Southend view Skipness - WHY???? The"demographic" for Southend - at a guess - will be the relatively well-off areas of South and mid-Essex and the teeming millions of ( some very) well-off leisure / business users in East London. A totally mixed bag.


I myself am a regular traveller to Spain, France and Scotland. I have GLADLY given up Stansted to go to Malaga and Edinburgh from Southend (no more Edinburgh after June - sad but c'est la vie) but will continue to use Luton for Nimes as there is no other option. Why am I "cannibalising" Stansted? Stansted is very inconvenient for people like me in South Essex - Southend is much more convenient and much more pleasant.


EDIT - Totally agree with you cumbrianboy.

[davidjohnson6]

It's worth remembering that in the late 1990s Stansted was very much underused and perceived as an airport with very few passengers. I really don't want to get into the BAA cross subsidy / merits of LCC issues but STN has now become accepted as an airport people in London will actively consider for leisure. Took many years for STN to migrate in public perception from empty shell to busy. It will likely take SEN a long time to gain public acceptance from people in London rather than just Essex.

[Skipness One Echo]

With regard to being chippy - you do seem to have an anti-Southend view Skipness - WHY???? The"demographic" for Southend - at a guess - will be the relatively well-off areas of South and mid-Essex and the teeming millions of ( some very) well-off leisure / business users in East London. A totally mixed bag.

The demographic will proportionally be biased far more towards outbound as I suspect SEN might become the local airport of choice for people going on holiday and serve the community well. That's nowhere near becoming a strategic asset in serving London which is what I am questioning, and indeed I would be surprised if that's what the town wants.

Essexman you can be as close as you say the square mile but if that's not the market that ends up using the airport, then that's not the issue. I am well aware where the other airports in the area are thanks. I know how far Canary Wharf is from each airport as I live five minutes away on foot from South Quay. You realise that with your personal example, you're kinda making my point for me? No?

[Expressflight]

Skipness One Echo

You are obviously as entitled to your opinion on the merits of SEN being a true London airport as anyone who believes the contrary, but I think a couple of your reasons are dubious and comparisons with Manston and Oxford will raise more than a few eyebrows I feel.

SEN is on the shore of the Thames Estuary and not "on the coast" in the usually accepted sense. It's position relative to water is irrelevant surely.

The EDI route has not worked for the very reason that has been stated, in that a double-daily is the minimum requirement to attract the business traveller and at the time of writing this has not been tried.

I don't have any verifiable figures to support this, but anecdotal evidence suggests that SEN attracts users from a much wider catchment than would at first sight be expected. Yes, it is largely outbound traffic at present but that is likely to change and the over reliance on leisure traffic will also reduce as a consequence.

I agree that it will take time for SEN to become a natural choice for the majority of London-based passengers but it is still early days and ads such as those aired recently on London radio stations will help.

Can we not all applaud the complete transformation that SEN has achieved in just two years and wait and see how it evolves over the next couple of years? I'm not sure than many people would have predicted it would have a throughput of one million pax annually at this stage, but it does.

[european130]

l cannot give you number of leisure vs business people using the airport, but l am an American who travels on business to my head office in the east end of London. l have been flying through SEN since the Aer Lingus link started as it is so much easier and quicker than using LGW, LCY or LHR. Now LCY is great but l generally arrive on Sunday morning and the airport does not open until afternoon on Sundays. So l flt MCO/DUB/SEN its quick and l take the train to Stratford and then the central line tube to my hotel. Plus on the return clearing in DUB through US Customs is so, so easy.

[FRatSTN]

For once I actually agree pretty much with SOE.

Expressflight, your arguments only help prove the point that SEN covers a fairly local catchment area. Due to your location, it's no wonder you see SEN as a breeze to use. There's by no means anything wrong with that, it's people in your shoes helping SEN to prosper.

However you completely fail to recognise the bigger picture. It's a competitive market out there with 5 much bigger rivals. SEN is always likely to struggle to serve London in the proportions that LHR, LGW, STN, LTN and LCY are. SEN has indeed done very well and hats off to them. But they are only going to ever be a small regional airport on the outskirts of London which it's local catchment and only a handful of people travelling to/from London are likely to use and value very much.

Further afield it becomes much less attractive, regardless of its service level. For example, around Coventry and Leicester where I am, LTN, STN and even LGW are all regularly used. I guarantee you that SEN probably wouldn't even come close to consideration, that's if it's even known as a commercial passenger airport!

Around Coventry in particular you even see National Express Coaches and Airport Taxis all the time with ads and prices for transfers to LTN, STN and LGW airports, but never SEN. You must surely see the point!?

[LGS6753]

No-one has picked up on SOE's point that SEN is "-on-sea", meaning it has a limited catchment area.

Draw a 30 mile radius circle centred on any airport, and generally you've got it's core carchment area. If half, or a third, of that circle is sea, then few people will live there and that will reduce the airport's catchment area. If some of that circle contains a wide estuary with no direct crossing, land on the opposite bank will not be core catchment area either.

Southend suffers from both effects; few people live east of the airport and North Kent's access to the airport is convoluted, to say the least.

I wish SEN every success, but I don't expect it to ever be more than a local airport.

[tophat27dt]

I do think we have, once again, exhausted the debate on whether SEN should be called "London-Southend", or how many minutes the trains take to arrive in London.
The debate started concerning any new flights to be announced soon.
Stobarts have already stated that when the extended terminal is officially opened at the end of March, and they have something to announce concerning new routes, we will be the first to hear about it.
So, please, let's wait and see. Facts are better than dreams.

[cumbrianboy]

well said tophat ...

[tws123]

Feb Provisional Statistics Summary

Provisional statistics show 72,786 for the month of February. The Krakow pax is not good at all (3,928) and Edinburgh (4,266) slightly better than that. Dublin saw a slight decrease (-10%) but not too worrying at the moment. Jersey has been cut significantly (-42%). Amsterdam (+10%), Geneva (+75%) and Barcelona (+18%) are still performing well. Venice up 61% and Berlin looking steady. Tenerife had an average load of 143/180 (79%) which is good too. Bucket and spade routes such as Alicante and Palma de Mallorca* saw increases, while Malaga saw a slight decrease (*new for winter season with EZY).

[Nextprop]

The Krakow passenger figures seem perfectly reasonable. Only 4 flights per week operated in February, which gives a load factor of 79%. Hardly a disaster.

[tws123]

My mistake I just remember the figure being more around the 4,500 mark in previous months, I can't remember it being below 4,000 before. But as you say actually that would appear pretty good. Shame it is being dropped.

[Buster the Bear]

Just heard a new service to Munster? That was a brilliant trooping route once.

[IB4138]

Southend is actually more convenient than Gatwick, if you can fly into there, if you are going to East Kent, but not too many people have realised that yet.

[sxflyer]

Yes the KRK pax numbers have always been good, but they must haze their reasons for dropping it - low onboard spend and lack of revenue from hotel/car bookings possibly if it's migrant workers using it?

SXF figures are decent, anecdotally the outbound flight does very well but the inbound less so with the late arrival.

DUB is an interesting one, pax per flight are up but LF down - fewer flights compared to last Feb (no Sat evening or Tue/Wed pm) but largely now a 72 rather than the 42. There were also a few cancellations (5/6?) due to poor weather at either end