Southend-2

[AirportPlanner1]

Originally Posted by SEN Observer

Looks like curtains for Paderborn

CAA stats show 72 passengers carried in December, which I think equates to 3.6 per flight. Embarrassing.

[Expressflight]

Originally Posted by AirportPlanner1

CAA stats show 72 passengers carried in December, which I think equates to 3.6 per flight. Embarrassing.

That's odd as my loadings numbers show 190 pax in December at 10.6 per flight and 11.6 pax per flight for the four January flights.

[LTNman]

Did Southend manage to keep its Biz Jet traffic when the restrictions at Luton ended?

[pabely]

Originally Posted by LTNman

Did Southend manage to keep its Biz Jet traffic when the restrictions at Luton ended?

Yes a few a day but nothing like what they had during the summer, suppose it will all kick in again once the Luton restrictions start again, then with the based RYR starting soon, will space become an issue?

[tophat27dt]

Jet Centre has its own reserved parking bays.
III

[tophat27dt]

Originally Posted by LTNman

Did Southend manage to keep its Biz Jet traffic when the restrictions at Luton ended?

If you look at the monthly "spotters reports" for SEN there is definitely an increase in bizjets using SEN

[Expressflight]

First B738 pax flight

Luxair B738 LX-LGU should be arriving SEN in the next 30 minutes operating a 'catch-up 'flight for LCY pax delayed by high winds earlier today. This will be the first B738 to carry pax into SEN, the two Luxair flights a couple of years ago arrived empty and operated out full to Pau. The two scheduled evening LUX-LCY-LUX flights have been combined onto the B738 into SEN.

[rog747]

Originally Posted by Expressflight

Luxair B738 LX-LGU should be arriving SEN in the next 30 minutes operating a 'catch-up 'flight for LCY pax delayed by high winds earlier today. This will be the first B738 to carry pax into SEN, the two Luxair flights a couple of years ago arrived empty and operated out full to Pau. The two scheduled evening LUX-LCY-LUX flights have been combined onto the B738 into SEN.

SEN - LUX load was bussed from LCY and was 105 pax

Not sure how many came in on it from LUX

[davidjohnson6]

Earlier today a BA Cityflyer flight from Milan Linate diverted to Southend due to bad weather, and the return back to Milan also began in Southend (the aircraft spends Friday and Saturday night in Milan)
A single divert is pretty mundane, but what puzzles me is why a divert like this causes chaos. The E190 ended up landing at Southend just before 8 am. The pax for a 0940 departure fron LCY were checked in, luggage accepted at checkin desks, and only at the LCY gate just before gate-closing time were they told to then go collect their bags from arrivals, wait for a coach to take them to Southend and then end up departing SEN 4 hours after the original LCY departure time or 5h30 after the plane landed at SEN following bad weather

LCY-SEN is about 45 mins to drive. So why does a divert like this which should not be unexpected with winter weather take so long to resolve ? And no, the handling agents wouldn't say anything beyond the catch-all 'operational reasons' ! I don't mean to have a moan - more trying to understand why this all takes so long to be resolved, especially when SEN has ample spare airport capacity

[AirportPlanner1]

On a similar note I was at STN today where a Swiss turned up. It was on the ground a good couple of hours so I guessed they were bringing the pax over, but no it seemed to me to depart empty. Surely it could have headed back immediately and not unnecessarily delayed later flights (if it was due to make any).

Perhaps the issue isn’t the capacity of SEN or the ease in which pax could theoretically be transferred, but one of waiting on ops decisions.

The Swiss couldn’t have made it back to LCY because it was too late. Perhaps BA were waiting to see if conditions improved. Perhaps the aircraft being displaced necessitated bringing in a new crew. Perhaps they couldn’t source a coach in good time. No point sending pax by train because it’s rail replacement.

[Cazza_fly]

Originally Posted by davidjohnson6

Earlier today a BA Cityflyer flight from Milan Linate diverted to Southend due to bad weather, and the return back to Milan also began in Southend (the aircraft spends Friday and Saturday night in Milan)
A single divert is pretty mundane, but what puzzles me is why a divert like this causes chaos. The E190 ended up landing at Southend just before 8 am. The pax for a 0940 departure fron LCY were checked in, luggage accepted at checkin desks, and only at the LCY gate just before gate-closing time were they told to then go collect their bags from arrivals, wait for a coach to take them to Southend and then end up departing SEN 4 hours after the original LCY departure time or 5h30 after the plane landed at SEN following bad weather

LCY-SEN is about 45 mins to drive. So why does a divert like this which should not be unexpected with winter weather take so long to resolve ? And no, the handling agents wouldn't say anything beyond the catch-all 'operational reasons' ! I don't mean to have a moan - more trying to understand why this all takes so long to be resolved, especially when SEN has ample spare airport capacity

If it wasn't planned, its having the staff availability to make the alternative arrangements in a short period of time and knowing of the availabilty of check-in staff / baggage handling agents at SEN being able to handle it at a certain point in time too. Whilst it seems passengers were informed of the arrangements "late in the day" at the gate - a number of other things will have been going off in the background. Perhaps one of them at some point will have been to continue the aircraft on to LCY should an improved weather window occur. Failing that, organising the onward transport can also take time and will have only been made when the decision to definitely operate the flight from SEN had taken place. There's no coaches just parked up idle at LCY waiting for such an event, so they have to be sourced and then will give an estimate of dispatch and journey time to get to LCY. Now, this is presuming it wasn't the only disrupted flight. If so, handling staff may have also been dealing with issues on any other disruptions and hold ups on delays too before being able to take on this disrupted flight. Another hold up before returning passengers on the flight back to the land-side area will have been to work with the airport on the best route to do this. Ensuring the luggage collection was ready - all whilst (presumably?) other operations were continuing at LCY including arriving flights using the baggage hall. That's all so far happened at LCY alone before even having to make a full new check-in at SEN, most probably under manual operating conditions (no BA check-in system) with most likely minimum staff due to having to protect their own flight schedules first and foremost. That's not even mentioning any crewing issues, flight planning changes etc. So perhaps 4 hours all in all isn't the worst.

[irishlad06]

Originally Posted by AirportPlanner1

On a similar note I was at STN today where a Swiss turned up. It was on the ground a good couple of hours so I guessed they were bringing the pax over, but no it seemed to me to depart empty. Surely it could have headed back immediately and not unnecessarily delayed later flights (if it was due to make any).

Perhaps the issue isn’t the capacity of SEN or the ease in which pax could theoretically be transferred, but one of waiting on ops decisions.

The Swiss couldn’t have made it back to LCY because it was too late. Perhaps BA were waiting to see if conditions improved. Perhaps the aircraft being displaced necessitated bringing in a new crew. Perhaps they couldn’t source a coach in good time. No point sending pax by train because it’s rail replacement.

Maybe Swiss ops were waiting on a window of opportunity to operate the aircraft to LCY for the return or maybe the crew on it were due to get off and night stop in LCY and there was a new crew waiting in LCY to take over so they would have had to get transport between airports. There are multiple reasons including ramp handling - do swiss have a handling contract at SEN - if not then everything needs prepayment or organised otherwise - there could have been a slot departure restriction - multitude of possible causes as to why it sat on the ground for a few hours and then operated back empty.

[southside bobby]

As a note...

SWR A220 departed STN to ZRH...& as a further note over numerous SWR diverts in the past they have always appeared to depart back to Switzerland & not position to LCY later.
Swiss efficiency?

[Expressflight]

Luxair seem to share the same philosophy as Swiss in that their fairly frequent LCY diversions to SEN are turned round very quickly and depart empty to LUX. This actually benefits SEN operationally as it frees up stands for further diversions if needed.

[AirportPlanner1]

Originally Posted by irishlad06

Maybe Swiss ops were waiting on a window of opportunity to operate the aircraft to LCY

As I clearly said, getting back to LCY wasn’t an option as it was too late for the curfew. I also doubt they were awaiting crew as Swiss don’t night stop, particularly not on a Saturday.

[Jersey32D]

Unless SEN were unable to handle the aircraft type? Whilst not knowing specifics, perhaps a towbar and subsequent self manoeuvre stand were unavailable?

[Expressflight]

Originally Posted by Jersey32D

Unless SEN were unable to handle the aircraft type? Whilst not knowing specifics, perhaps a towbar and subsequent self manoeuvre stand were unavailable?

If you are talking about Swiss they always choose STN as their LCY diversion airport. Nothing to do with SEN handling capability.

[mikkie4]

Passenger numbers for DECEMBER were just short of 1.1/2 million compaired to DEC 2017 ,That's pretty dam good...(PAX NUMBERS UP AIRCRAFT MOVEMENTS DOWN) more bums on seats on less planes

[welkyboy]

They’ve only just celebrated the millionth pax for the last twelve months, so your figures are “pie in the sky” old chap.....

[pabely]

Originally Posted by mikkie4

Passenger numbers for DECEMBER were just short of 1.1/2 million compaired to DEC 2017 ,That's pretty dam good...(PAX NUMBERS UP AIRCRAFT MOVEMENTS DOWN) more bums on seats on less planes

I think that is rolling year, not December