Buster

It reminds me of a small Dutch airline whose advertising offered "daily fights".

Apart from painting the train (not sure how practical that is) all of those things and more have or are being done. Flybe on passenger gates, free flights on Heart FM plus other local stations and papers, Stobart trailers (not Flybe specifically but the airport).

Then you have adverts in train carriages, massive billboards at major stations and along highways, 1000 free seats, Facebook/Twitter competitions.

There's a lot people could fault Stobart on, promotion of the new routes and the overall operation isn't one of them.

The trailer door adverts are no longer as Eddie Stobart is no longer part of the company. Stobart group do still have some HGVs but these are very few compaired to Eddie Stobart. Group have around 200 trailers with the majority based in the north of England so wouldn't be of much benefit considering the cost of re doing the trailers they have. Mr Tinkler is heading up the new investment part of the business in order to create businesses that they can flip for a profit in order to keep paying the dividends they have promised.

yes thats him thanks! - he flew holidays out of SEN in the 70's using Transeuropa caravelles and i think shared the flight with Pontinental to Palma

Pontinental also used Channel airways 1-11's and tridents as well but i think that was eventually done from STN due to the noise

rowly6339 - still no official announcement as far as I'm aware about a 4th easyJet being based at SEN next year. Are you still thinking this will happen? I haven't been right back through the postings but am pretty sure it was you who raised this. Any news please?

I disagree. Have you been in Fenchurch St station at any point over the past 3 months or any stations on c2c routes. All show Easyjet decals. Organge galore everywhere. Not a single Flybe decal to be seen anywhere. Nada. Zilch.

I was stuck in very heavy tail backs on A13 and 127 yesterday morning and driving in Essex for about 4 hours yesterday. At no point did I hear a Heart promo giving away Flybe tickets on the soon to commence new services. In fact, I listen to Heart everyday, doesn't happen.

I have seen the odd (very odd) billboard along A13 but rarely seen elsewhere.

Social media yes. But my point being, the marketing is certainly not massive, constant, loud, in your face. It's mute and therefore whatever expense it's costing is money down the drain unless it's a major splash in your face.
Should be peak slot commercials immediately before and after news slots. Heart traffic 'sponsored by Flybe - fly direct London Southend to blah, blah,etc visit www.etc'

Decal wrapping one or two c2c carriages in eye catching adverts may be a nice revenue earner for the route operators but also something new and novel for Flybe and SEN.

CGN appears in the booking engine as a 4/7 (MoWeFrSu) late morning flight fir the winter schedule? Wasn't that route destined to go?

Yes that's correct. MXP will not be operated direct from SEN this winter at 4 x weekly as originally planned and the CGN takes its place although its departure time doesn't seem to quite fit a two EMB195 based fleet so will perhaps be operated by an ATR72.

An ATR for CGN makes sense, it's not far.

I wouldn't underestimate the power of social media in promoting the airport. Just look at what Trump 'achieved' with a daily deluge of tweets. Rather than wrap a train, I'd like to see more advertising inside the carriages of mainline and underground services that serve Essex and East London. Perhaps with a code to quote for a 5% discount on Flybe flights. Lots of travel related businesses do it, and have done so for years, so it may prove effective.

regarding advertising there havw been ads along the A13 and there are two large electronic billboards near Canary Wharf along the A13 so everyone driving that way into the city would have seen them which were regularly showing Flybe/Stobart ads for SEN. I've also seen ads on bus shelters around east London.


Heart has done a couple of competitions as seen here:


Win easyJet Flights From London Southend Airport - Heart Essex - Nov 2016


Win A European Break From London Southend Airport - Heart Essex - March 2017


Capital FM Glasgow has a competition to win flights
Win A Shopping Weekend In London - Capital Scotland


These radio competitions are likely to be repeatedly mentioned on air.


Local papers and websites have also all done competitions:
Win flights on one of Flybe's new routes to Dublin, Glasgow and Manchester from London Southend Airport | News | Yellow Advertiser


WIN FLIGHTS WITH FLYBE! | News | Visit Southend


WIN flights to one of these five destinations in today's Echo (From Echo)


https://www.southendunited.co.uk/new...s-with-flybe-/


So SEN is doing a fair bit of advertising and particularly for the Flybe routes.

Whilst this whole debate about one person not seeing an advert at Liverpool Street station is fascinating, surely the facts should speak for themselves, if they've achieved a 75%+ load factor on the jet services in the first summer of operation, then I personally think it's fair to say it's been a success, despite all the nay-saying.

What ever they are doing seems to be working well.

BA318 you're point is similar to mine and you're right. mlk3bravo is talking garbage. It may be the case there is no flybe advertising at the moment but there has been, it might also be that SEN holds the advertising space but is using it to promote EZY.

I suggested some time ago CGN could continue using the spare capacity on the ATR. Looks like I was right.

And of course they're not just advertising to the public. 'Blazing a trail' may be a bit OTT, but a demonstration of potential for others to consider, certainly. Now, if the domestic routes do decent business over the winter.... well, that could lead an operator or two LSA's way.

I don't think it will. There is no one else that would realistically fly those routes, especially MAN.

I don't think the point being made was competition on Manchester, more so if the domestic services work, it demonstrates that the market demographics that will use SEN are beyond the traditional bucket and spade brigade, which gives operators more confidence.

It's all gone a tad quiet on this although I believe it is still going ahead, however I shall do some digging when I get back to the UK and if I hear anything I will post it on here.

Remarkable that this thread has more views at over 1.5 million than Southend has passengers.:D

You get that with small airports.

Blackpool threads had lots of views and posts. SEN is the same. It's because with small airports everything matters. If Easy took a jet away from SEN, it would be big news, if Easy took a jet away from MAN, would hardly get a mention.

Since Blackpool closed the new thread has had 123,463 views and there are not even flights to the IOM anymore.

Astonishingly hyper sensitive reaction's from some SEN keyboard warriors. Anyway, I cited Fenchurch, not Liverpool St. Furthermore, I shared a view that all you see splashed at c2c stations are Squeezy orange advert's. Please tell me SEN are not betting the house on Squeezy! Load factors will need be sustainably strong. As we've seen with Flybe before, they're a bit bipolar and have dropped services after Aer Lingus dropped services from SEN.
I wish SEN success but I'm not convinced just yet.

True, but these are Stobart Air routes opperated by flyBE, not flyBE routes. They will soon be operated by Stobart Air rather than flyBE.

Yes, that was my exactly my point. Thanks, I didn't make it clear (and I hadn't even started on the vin rouge at that time).