Crazy to turn Ryanair down? I really don't think so. Yes they bring passengers, but to the small regional airports it's usually at a cost and often a cost that the airport is just not able to recover ....

Couple of links here with some short video clips from Matthew Hudson and Simon Caldar from ITV Anglia news about Stansted new ownership:

Promise of new investment at Stansted airport | Anglia - ITV News

Stansted now 'unshackled as Heathrow's poor relation' | Anglia - ITV News

Some interesting objectives it would seem...

Various commentators in the past have suggested that without airport subsidies, Ryanair would not make a profit.

Really

Please do list them.

According to Wiki, RYR have over 300 a/c and in 2010 had a turnover of €3,013 million, with a profit of €339 million. All from airport subsidies?

Various commentators in the past have suggested that Bears should steer clear of green-eyed monsters....

63.2 million according to ONS
Population

Ryanair take people to where they wish to got to at an affordable price. Making money from the aerodrome is the responsibility of the airfield operator. It is that simple. Some can do well with FR, some couldn't negotiate their way out of a paper bag, those, not doing so well.

It's business, and it meets local government(!)

racedo, just google 'Ryanair subsidies', you will find hundreds of articles which show 'local' european airports give their public money away to attract Ryanair. It's great for thier local ecomonies but that is the way things work, or don't work in europe.

A subsidy could be seen as a backhander, bribe or even blackmail in some eyes.

So would you say the Govt and Local Authority subsidy in investing in infrastructure around Luton Airport is a bribe ?

It's gone awfully quiet regarding Stansted for the last couple of weeks, but you know what they say, no news is good news. My assumption is that MAG must be very busy talking to a number of airlines.

One thing that I will point out is that FR's cuts don't seem to be taking affect until 1st July. I'm sure they said April initially but that might be my mistake.

The investment directly benefits the whole local area and population by keeping the traffic moving and is no different than any other town.

Can't see airlines queuing up to move out of Gatwick, Heathrow or Luton.

quite how MAG target their resources will be interesting !

The US looks a non starter so growth can only be toward Asia.

By way of example with all Emirates flights full there are strong rumours of a 4th daily pax flight and dedicated cargo service at Manchester, would they seriously try scupper that and lure these flights to STN ?

Where would that leave the new MAN CEO ?

When will EasyJet stop destroying Stansted!?
 

It is sad that I once remember not too long ago the 13 or 14 EasyJet aircraft at Stansted with routes to Alicante, Barcelona, Faro, Fuerteventura, Madeira, Tallinn and Geneva operating all-year not to mention up to 3 daily flights to Copenhagen, 2 to Munich, 4 to Amsterdam with Glasgow and Edinburgh up to 6 flights a day and up to 3 flights in the summer to Alicante, Faro, Malaga and Palma.

Now there's a much smaller choice of routes, a base half the size of Luton when it was once nearly on par and now has really poor timings and frequencies on many of the remaining routes. For example, for Malaga I now either have to be at check-in at 4am or passport control at 1am. There was once a midday flight leaving 12:30ish, perfect! What a classic way of throwing customers away! Looking at their winter 2013/14 schedule, there better be some big expansion plans in consideration to make the Stansted netwrok half descent!

Yes they recently opened new routes to Marrakech, Sharm El Sheikh and Sofia, but these are clearly an attempt to utilise aircraft for a longer period so it looks to consumers that they are expanding and introducing more routes when in fact they are replacing effectively two or three shorter flights with one much longer one, reducing the number of a/c movements and more importantly, passengers numbers and choice for consumers. A clever way of doing business some would say, but I for one feel a sly move like this insults the intelligence of those who have some knowledge about the industry and really makes me wonder what kind of customers they are trying to attract.

The best of it is that the CEO Ms McCall categorically said that Stansted would lose 3 aircraft in summer 2012 as a result of the new base in Southend, but more efficient use of the fleet would mean capacity would not necessarily be lost at Stansted. A bare faced lie of course as only 2 years after, not only 3 but 5 or 6 aircraft have been removed! Essex overall is actually worse off than it was before!

The main problem is that I don’t think enough people are aware of the volume of EasyJet traffic that has been removed from Stansted. If a 4 a/c base at Southend really damages Stansted to the extent of close to 20 fewer departures per day in the summer of 2013 compared to summer 2011 and the loss of 5 or 6 aircraft, they really have got themselves a serious problem. Either that or the CEO intentionally lied to its customers!

Of course we can’t realistically expect EasyJet to publicise a big cut back in Stansted (although of course Ryanair does) but the fact that EasyJet don’t have the decency to even give reasons for possible Stansted cut backs and most atrociously lie by saying there won’t be any really is a disgusting way of doing business. Not telling is different from lying. I for one never appreciate a company that lies. I just hope for their sake that they don’t continue to fool their customers and risk losing their trust and their custom once and for all in a forever shrinking catchment area they have!!!

FRatSTN, you've made it quite clear in the past that you have a steadfast loyalty to Ryanair and an issue with easyJet, so maybe you should leave it there?

Do easyJet operate Public Service Obligation routes from Stansted? No. Are you an easyJet shareholder? I doubt it.

Therefore, moan as much as you like, but I honestly don't know what you expect to achieve. How about all of the times Ryanair have opened bases, thrown a fit at the airport authorities over high charges, and then left a load of passengers in the lurch? I'm thinking Belfast City as one good example. Just because Ryanair have been loyal to Stansted for a long time, and Stansted happens to be your preferred airport, does not mean that they haven't lied to and shafted people at many other airports across Europe in their time.

You may feel that easyJet have let us down at Stansted, but the last time I checked they were a private company in the business to make a profit. The last time I checked, they also made it in to the FTSE 100, and so they are quite clearly doing something right and keeping lots of passengers + shareholders happy. Unfortunately it seems that their future business plans do not involve Stansted as much as we'd like to, but running an airline is an ever evolving strategy and involves years and years of meetings/negotiations/forecasts/agreements between hundreds of different parties that me and you will never know about.

It's just one of those things - we should be pleased that easyJet are quite clearly doing very well in these difficult times and after all is said and done, move on and get over it.

Whether or not I like EasyJet is a irrelavent, but FYI I don't dislike EasyJet, I just prefer Ryanair. The "issue" I have with EasyJet is their continued reduction at Stansted.

A case like every other where it hits the headlines, even the BBC, and people know about it. Why are EasyJet so affriad to do the same here? Perhaps because this actually has nothing to do with profit and Stansted fees being too high, if that were the case then EasyJet would have cut right back in 2007 when BAA doubled the landing fees but instead it continued to grow. I doubt they would have waited four years before deciding that Stansted's fees were really hitting profits.

Far from it! Ryanair have cut back at Stansted aswell, albeit to a smaller degree. Did you not hear about the 9% reduction in traffic this summer? Of course you did, because Ryanair publicise it! I can't see how stating how many passengers will be lost and informing passengers which routes will be axed/reduced at what time and offering full refunds or an altenative FR route is lying and shafting people??

The EasyJet way of "we're not neccessarily going to cut back" followed by a 40% reduction in 2 years and leaving people questioned as to whether a route has been axed or just not yet put on sale is a far cry from truthfullness and customer good will. If that is not lying and shafting people then I really don't know what is. It seems to be there's one rule for Ryanair yet another for EasyJet!

The primary aim is to make a profit of course, but it is also to build and good reputation and provide a service that people want to use again. Axing popular routes from a major UK airport shows them clearly failing to see this. In some respects, you are probably right... perhaps they are pushing so hard for profit, hence why they are doing well financially, but the number of existing customers they will be losing as a result will in time damage their reputation to those in the Stansted catchment. They are pratically giving customers away to Ryanair. That's unquestionable!

U2 and FR: London airports
 

It's fairly obvious what's happened, U2 is dominant at LTN and LGW, FR has a relatively small operation at these airports. FR dominates at STN and U2 is progressively running down its operation there.

U2 is at SEN and FR isn't, so there's another reason to reduce its presence at STN. Neither is at LCY and LHR.

The alternative would be go head-to-head at three London airports and see who blinks first! What's the point?

Stansted has been in decline for years. Easyjet has only played a very small part in that decline. I think they only came to Stansted in the first place when they bought Go so maybe their heart has never been in the place.

Maybe Ryanair get bigger discounts than easyjet and easyjet has had enough?

you are correct, If I recall they held an auction with Luton and Stansted Airports to see which would stump up the most cash to have the airline based at their airport. Luton came up with more cash and never looked back.

free WIFI
 

I still don't buy the fact that the strong FR presence, EZY's strong presence in LGW and LTN and the opening of the SEN base or the fact that EZY are only at Stansted because of taking over Go has resulted in a sudden sharp reduction of traffic in just 2 years, after years of EasyJet increases until 2011, 8 years after Go!

As it stands, I'm still fuming with the management of EasyJet, once a realistic alternative for many many thousands of us to Ryanair, Jet2 or Monarch. They throw all those years of success building such a strong network in a major UK airport with a wide customer base in the bin to maximise success from Southend, a small local airport that will never attract a high volume of passengers from long distances and inbound visitors travelling onwards to London.

Im sure of it, one day EasyJet will regret this if this trend continues when they realise they've lost out to the competition as Stansted WILL return to growth in the future, potentially without them being part of it!

We can only hope that MAG will make a difference in the near future and hope that they can see just how outrageous their operation at Stansted has become! Perhaps BAA deliberately enticed them to leave as the new they had to sell soon and didn't want to help the competition??? We will have to just keep our fingers crossed. EasyJet can at the moment easily put back what they've removed, but to simply say easyJet's heart isn't in Stansted is very wrong!

Easyjet were once a strong player at East Midlands and pulled the plug so the writing could well be on the wall for Stansted.

I have to say I am somewhat surprised with Southend's appeal over Stansted. Easyjet can only operate 18 hours a day with 3 aircraft and 17.5 hours a day with all other aircraft based at Southend due to night restrictions. Southend has no public transport links for the first departures and last arrivals of the day which is affecting passenger numbers and Southend’s catchment area is even worse than Stansted. When trains are available the travel time to Liverpool St is even longer so Easyjet must have an exceptional deal at Southend to make it worth while.

LTNman

I agree with almost all that you have just said regarding SEN, although I don't think that the slightly longer train travel time to SEN is likely to deter anyone.

What has surprised me is the large number of leisure travellers using SEN from outside of its natural catchment. I personally know of three parties from North Norfolk who have done so, the most recent having mentioned it just this week. They said they found SEN "a wonderful experience compared to Stansted" (her exact words to my wife) and liked the fact that all the facilities there were run by one entity (not completely accurate but that was their perception). From their home to SEN is a 2hr 50min drive, 40min longer than to STN, yet they still prefer it.

Perhaps easyJet are finding this is a common occurence as they have that data available, so perhaps that partly explains their continued love affair with SEN. I don't doubt they got an extremely good deal from Stobarts, but that is only any good to them if they can achieve good yields over time.

This is the issue with Southend. It still has that "new" factor to a lot of passengers and when that wares off in a few years, people will naturally go back to the most convenient option, which for many as both Expressflight and LTNman have somewhat agreed to, is Stansted.

It's a bit like our village. For years it had a Co-op only. Think of that as the Stansted, the more expensive but easier, slightly more central location in the village. Eventually an Aldi opens a 1/4 of a mile down the road. Think of that as the Southend, the cheaper and quieter option but slightly more diffucult to get to. When Aldi opens, the Co-op loses a lot of its customers for several weeks/months but customers do and have returned for the convenience, even if they prefer the Aldi. I think it's exactly the same principal here but just on a much larger scale, and that transfer of passengers back to their original (Stansted) will take several years as opposed to months. Of course for some, Southend is more convenient and a number of people will continue to use it into the much longer term future.

That's why I think in time, EasyJet may well regret ever cutting back at Stansted. The only explanation to them axing such popular routes from Stansted like Alicante, Barcelona and Faro is because they want to limit the competition and maximise the potential of those routes that now go from Southend. I don't think they suddenly became unprofitable after around a decade of flying.

Already the Belfast route has been drecreased to a once daily flight from Southend, clearly they aren't getting the response they wanted from business travellers, and if ALC, BCN and FAO were still at Stansted, I think EasyJet will not be performing half as well as they do at Southend. I think the cuts are purely to maximise the potential of Southend by limiting the competition from the bigger and more powerfull Stansted.

I presume you mean because Southend has only a 180 degree catchment due to the Thames Estuary to the south? If that is the case that's too simplistic. Stansted is in the middle of some lovely Essex/Suffolk/Hertfordshire countryside where few people live. Southend's urban area stretches west to Basildon, east to Shoebury and north towards Woodham Ferrers and contains over 600,000 people. So there's a viable local catchment. Add to that Thurrock and Brentwood districts and you get another quarter of a million. Then there's Chelmsford district with its 175,000 people. And there's always eastern London, of course. Stansted's immediate catchment is far smaller. The extensive district councils of Uttlesford and Braintree, which include Stansted, amount to less than 240,000 between them. The even larger district council of East Hertfordshire can muster only 140,000.

I too have been surprised by the distances people travel to get to SEN. It's understandable that East Enders should choose SEN since Southend has always been seen as East End on Sea, but for people from Kent, Suffolk and Norfolk to travel to SEN seems slightly bizarre, yet I've met examples from all three in my infrequent visits to the airport. I still think SEN's biggest appeal will be for inward travellers from Europe once the word gets around.....

But a lot of areas in the local area you describe are similar distance from both Southend and Stansted. Lets take a look. This is the journey times by road according to Google Earth:

LONDON
SEN: 41.7 mi, 1hr 4 mins
STN: 37.5 mi, 51 mins

BASILDON
SEN: 11.9 mi, 23 mins
STN: 38.9 mi, 46 mins

BRAINTREE
SEN: 34.3 mi, 55 mins
STN: 18.8 mi, 25 mins

BRENTWOOD
SEN: 19.9 mi, 32 mins
STN: 28.2 mi, 33 mins

CANARY WHARF
SEN: 37.8 mi, 54 mins
STN: 35.6 mi, 43 mins

CHELMSFORD
SEN: 19.8 mi, 30 mins
STN: 18.9 mi, 34 mins

COLCHESTER
SEN: 40.8 mi, 51 mins
STN: 32.6 mi, 45 mins

DARTFORD
SEN: 28.7 mi, 44 mins
STN: 39.9 mi, 45 mins

GILLINGHAM (South of Thames Estuary!)
SEN: 45.3 mi, 1 hr 1 min
STN: 56.5 mi, 1 hr 3 mins

HARLOW
SEN: 38.1 mi, 53 mins
STN: 16.6 mi, 24 mins

ROMFORD
SEN: 25.8 mi, 39 mins
STN: 30.5 mi, 37 mins

This is just the local area, going further afield...

CAMBRIDGE
SEN: 72.3 mi, 1 hr 24 mins
STN: 32.3 mi, 40 mins

IPSWICH
SEN: 56.8 mi, 1 hr 8 mins
STN: 48.6 mi, 1 hr 2 mins

KETTERING
SEN: 112 mi, 1 hr 59 mins
STN: 70.9 mi, 1 hr 15 mins

PETERBOROUGH
SEN: 108 mi, 1 hr 54 mins
STN: 66.8 mi, 1 hr 9 mins

NORWICH
SEN: 99.2 mi, 2 hrs 9 mins
STN: 84.3 mi, 1 hr 39 mins

Note also that Cambridge and Peterborough serve Stansted with direct rail links and although some places like Stevenage, Luton, Northampton etc. are closer to Luton Airport, they still come into the Stansted catchment area and a lot further to Southend.

All in all, I think it's fair to say that Southend's catchment area is signficantly smaller than Stansted's. Yes some of the locations are a bit of a distance from Stansted, but for somewhere like Peterbrough for instance, Stansted would be the first choice of airport in terms of distance, despite being not far off 70 miles away.

So I keep my view. EasyJet are shrinking the size of their catchment area by moving traffic to Southend from Stansted, as for most major places outside of Essex and East London, it's significantly further in distance and longer in travelling times to get to Southend Airport. Effectively, EasyJet are losing all those customers in these areas as most will switch to Ryanair services from Stansted, not EasyJet from Luton or especially Southend.

Yes, I'm just making the point that SEN has a viable catchment of its own within a short distance (600,000 from Basildon eastwards). SEN won't climb above 2 million maximum. Surely other operators would move into STN if EZY were to pull out? Maybe it really is simply a desire to get away from Ryanair on EZY's part....?

I can see the benefits of both SEN and STN

BFS to SEN has not worked due to the difficulty of getting tomSEN for the 7.15 flight therefore poor LF. The daily flight is geared to suit the BFS pax, morning departure on Mon and Tues with late evening returns on Wed , Thurs and Fri etc

STN is still very popular with the NI pax, and I recently flew BFS to STN and the flight was full both ways.

SEN /BFS can only work double daily if aircraft is BFS based and maybe operated as a through flight to European destination (now that would be something for EZY to consider)

Both airports are good but I feel EZY should be looking at connections as well, recently flew back LYN, STN to BFS. Don't think SEN has that many.

Many pax use FR as they have good connections at STN, EZY should be looking at the same. Not all of us live in London, Birmingham or other large populated areas and have to use London for connections

EasyJet I don't think will ever pull out of Stansted entirely since as said before, Southend doesn't have the room for all its capacity.

The whole thing still doesn't make sense to me. I can't think honestly what is going through easyJet's mind with everything taken into account. Like I say, the only explanation that makes any sense is that easyjet have axed the popular med routes from Stansted in order to maximise their success at Southend. This Leaves the dangerous threat of another carrier like Jet2 or Monarch for instance filling in Easyet's space at Stansted as MAG said they will be talking to them about a possible base at the airport. And like you say, EasyJet cut backs will encourage this.

For consumers, especially in Essex, it would be good to see this since they would be served by a greater variety of airlines, but on EasyJet's part, they will be trampled on all over at Southend by the competition Stansted would build up and easyJet would have given a huge volume of it's customers away to it's rivals. Stansted won't decline forever, perhaps the new ownership should be a wake up call to get into MAG's good books before it's too late!!!

Easyjet have their own issues, their argument with Stelios who has restricted their growth as they can’t get board approval for new aircraft. Asa result of this they have to get the best yield on their current fleet. If thedeal at SEN gives a better yield than STN they will take aircraft there. They cantreplace the units at Stansted because they don’t have any more units. The goodnews is they are still “UK Eastern region” units and the capacity in the area is not lost.

There have been a number of posts aboutcatchment areas, I have frequently flown back to Stansted and been sat next topeople from as far away as Manchester and Sheffield. Catchment area is onepiece of the puzzle but people will drive a long way for a cheap ticket.........

I was really surprised and interested by your comments about Northamptonshire coming under the Stansted catchment area...

While it might be one of the airports target markets, I'd be extremely surprised how successful it is attracting people to the airport from this far away, unless you are one of the bargain travellers flying on a £10 Ryanair flight.

Getting to Stansted from Northants is fully reliant on the A14/M11 to get the airport. While in theory that means traveling on nice open dual carriage ways and motorways. The A14 is so unpredictable (especially around the Huntingdon and Cambridge area, and seems to be horrendous accidents, delays and tailbacks on this road several times a week and just makes travelling for a flight so unpredictable!

Stansted is practically ruled out for getting to via public transport, unless you are willing to make several connections.

Nearly everyone I know, including myself in the county considers Luton as our nearest and most convenient airport, followed by Birmingham. Simply because of the connections via the M1... I very rarely hear people saying they are flying from STN.

Public transport wise, Northampton has trains departing for Birmingham every 15 mins. Wellingborough, Kettering and Corby have direct half hourly intercity trains to Luton Airport Parkway which only takes 25 mins. BUT like Southend, early morning connections and late night arrivals are an issue, however both airports do have good connections with National Express to the county overnight.

I would even go as far to say Heathrow and Gatwick attract more traffic than Stansted from Northants with the better National Express links. Also just by changing platforms at Luton or Bedford, it is possible to get FCC trains to Gatwick.

As we are sort of up in the Midlands, Manchester Airport is a similar distance as Southend, of about 120 miles away!

Well even in Leicester, we have a lot of people who have and do use Stansted. A6, A14 and M11 and you're there.

The A14 has a bad reputation due to a high level of lorries using it going to and from the port at Felixstowe. I've used it many times and only had traffic problems once, and that was back in 2005. Unfortuneately, the same can't be said for the M1, especially round the Luton J9 and 10 area. Although recently improved vastly, congestion still occurs.

If a number of people in Leicester go to Stansted when we have East Midlands (FR's 2nd or 3rd largest UK base), Birmingham and Luton closer, I'm sure those from Northampton will also use or at least consider Stansted.

STN Ramp Rat wrote

I think there is alot of truth in that statement. There was a story in the local rag this week of a couple who live in Wales and missed their easyjet flight after getting stuck in a hotel lift at Luton for 90 minutes.

This debate all comes back to the fact that STN is in the wrong place, as I have said on this forum frequently:)

It serves few nearby towns of note (there is Harlow, but Bishops Stortford & Dunmow are small market towns), whereas SEN serves Southend itself, Leigh/Basildon/Rayleigh, Canvey Island, Billericay, Grays & Brentwood. Luton is in close proximity to Luton/Dunstable, Hitchin/Letchworth/Baldock, Stevenage, Milton Keynes, Harpenden & St Albans.

The debate about rail access is a bit of a side-show too. Most travellers (over 50% in all cases) arrive by car. SEN scores by having parking close to the terminal, whereas at STN, long stay parking is at a significant distance from the terminal, and expensive. That makes a real difference to travellers, and those in the know will choose airports with cheap parking close to the terminal.

EZY are quite correctly acting in the interests of their shareholders, and if they can operate with similar yields from an airport with significantly lower costs, less ground and airspace congestion and good access to 'airways', they are right to do so.

And don't we all know it, and how much pride you take in that obsessed belief of yours, with your little smiley.

Well unless Stansted has suddenly moved it's location in the last 2 years I really don't think it "comes back to the fact that STN is in the wrong place".

You're ignorance of other posts and past presence by the airline at Stansted is yet again quite frankly making you look stupid. I know people like you, they ignore the information they don't want to hear and just pick out the points that are on your side.

If all you can seriously blame this EasyJet situation on Stansted being in the "wrong place" then you need to analyse this situation much more deeply before you post. As is happens it appears EasyJet seem to be dissapointingly low at Luton as well as it stands. Perhaps that's not quite so well located after all???

... capacity is severely constrained at Luton, hence the Council can charge high operating fees (supply and demand). easyJet as been fairly open of late by saying they'd be happy to base more aircraft if there was space available. Luton can only really increase passenger numbers from airlines that base their aircraft abroad.

However, I believe 10-15 new stands will soon be in full time use for passenger services.

Yes but no new terminal capacity for at least 2 or 3 years

STN v SEN
 

It's not necesarily and only about catchment areas, SEN has a unique selling point as a small airport that's easy to get through with minimal hassle, a bit like LCY. That can be a big attraction for many. As mentioned above, SEN will not go above 2,000,000 pax/year, so will always have this advantage over STN.

Suspect that if NHT was up and running as a small regional airport, there would be those who would prefer it to LHR (even if it was further) for exactly the same reasons.

As for catchment areas, those of STN, LTN, LGW and LHR all overlap. If U2 lose East Anglia based pax by reducing their STN operations, it could be repaced by pax from the south coast (LGW) or from parts of the Midlands (LTN).

Many pax could probably go to all three of U2's large "London" bases, so if one is run down, it is not the end of the world. Doubtless U2 have sound commercial reasons for its decision.

So SEN reaches 2 million passengers. That's less than 2% of London traffic, big deal.

FRatSTN -

Gotcha!