I don't think a 2mppa cap was included in the Section 106 agreement. I think just an annual movement cap was stipulated with no reference to total pax numbers.

Re fire services strike action over Christmas:

Southend Airport fire workers vote to strike | Echo

Contingency in place. So I interpret this means business as usual and zero impacts to flights as result of this planned strike action.

From the Rochford Council's memo on the matter:

Para 5.3: The central principle of the Joint Area Action Plan (JAAP) is that the airport can expand its operations to enable up to 2 million passengers to be carried annually.

Para 6.1: The s106 legal agreement which controls amongst other things, passenger numbers and includes flight restrictions...

Para 5.30: The airport has consent to operate within the parameters as restricted by the s106 legal agreement that accompanied the planning consent for the runway extension; this limits passenger numbers and restricts flights.

Seems that airport capacity is indeed constrained by the s106 agreement.

I don't know to which Rochford Council memo you are referring and I cannot lay my hands on the Section 106 agreement at the moment. I have found a Rochford District Council document entitled 'London Southend Airport - Operational Controls Summary Table' which makes no reference to a limit on annual passenger numbers.

I believe the 2mppa figure was that used in connection with granting planning consent for the original terminal building construction in around 2010. This has now of course been considerably enlarged under a later planning consent so presumably a higher number was envisaged at that point.

The memo is that produced for the forthcoming planning committee meeting on the 14th December (see link above). The capacity for the airport has not been revised and stands at 2m pax as per the s106 agreement that the airport operator is legally obliged to comply with.

Hopefully someone can find a copy of the S106 agreement to confirm one way or the other if a 2mppa limitation appears in the document. From memory I don't think it does but cannot be certain and the RDC Controls Summary Table I mentioned certainly doesn't include any reference to a limit of passenger numbers which seems odd.

Interesting that the evidence provided for the current application could be based on false information then?

The original S106 agreement as an appendix to this doc.

https://www.southend.gov.uk/download...reement_300410

A quick read of the document which is the original s106 agreement and the variation to it in 2012 shows that the limit is on ATMs and not pax numbers. The airport is limited to 53,300 ATMs annually and the forecasts by the airport's own consultants suggest that would equate to approximately 2m pax. The relevant paragraph is 3.41 on page 79 of the pdf document.

ATMs are defined as any fixed or rotary wing take off or landing. In effect an ATM need not have any terminal passengers (such as flying club activity). Someone with more time than me might want to model pax numbers based upon max atms in a year given the mixed nature of the aircraft fleet at SEN and taking into account average yields on those flights and discounting all non-pax flights from the calculation!

I don't sense antagonism towards the airport from local politicians (other than those opposed to aviation in general). So many of them want to be associated with the mainly good PR in the local press, and are happy to take photo opportunities or quote positively whenever they can.

These agreements can be reviewed if problematic. I would expect support for growth, not least because growth = jobs.

On a slightly more negative note, unless something changes in the next few weeks, no-one need fear exceeding 2 million pax for some time.

The concern the local authority has seems to be for the local road network not being able to cater for increased pax numbers. In the s106 agreement there are two threshold pax figures, 1.5m and 2m. Once the first is breached the operator of the airport has to contribute towards the local authority's transport scheme should insufficient pax use public transport to arrive at the airport. This is escalated again at the 2m pax threshold.

The key phrase here is "should insufficient pax use public transport to arrive at the airport." Currently the minimum percentage target for public transport arrivals is being exceeded so the provisions of that clause would not apply.

I see that my recollection that there was no 2mppa limit within the S106 agreement was correct while much of the discussion of the past few days was based on an assumption that such a limit existed. Let's move on.

Incorrect Expressflight. The ATM limit is based upon the Jacobs report figure of 1.97m pax appended to the S106 agreement. But let's move on.

asdf1234

Whatever the ATM limit was based upon in 2010 the fact is that 53,300mpa is the only limiting factor on airport capacity within the strictures of the S106 agreement. Yesterday you stated "The capacity for the airport has not been revised and stands at 2m pax as per the s106 agreement that the operator is legally obliged to comply with." Not so.

How is the SEN-DUB route going since it re-started in October?

I haven't seen any figures but there's been many sold out flights with prices ranging from peanuts to around £350 for the last seats. Must be looking at 60,000 pax pa +

I would consider something around 10,000 for the first month of operations on SEN-DUB to represent a very successful re-launch of the route. Anything below 7,500 would be somewhat disappointing.

Is Southend taking any snow diversions?

Closed for snow clearance at present and no diversions as far as I know before that.

EZY A319 landing now, the GVA flight that diverted to LYS positioning back empty.

Quite the opposite LTNman, a host of cancellations and delays according to the airport website.

That might have something to do with the snow that caused cancellations, diversions and snoclo at several London airports today.

asdf1234

"A host of cancellations"?

There were two departure cancellations due to the snow at SEN (you had noticed the wx I assume) and two because AMS had snow as well and couldn't provide slots. They certainly did better than STN and LTN in that respect and that's no criticism of either of those airports on my part.

Presumably the affected pax won't be that bothered by the differentiation

Taken from the SEN website, asdf1234's comment of doesn't seem too far out:

EZY7370 GENEVA 10:25 — Cancelled
BE6171 COLOGNE 12:35 — Cancelled
EZY7416 ALICANTE 12:50 13:04 Arrived
EZY7436 MALAGA 13:00 12:49 Arrived
BE6151 VIENNA 13:45 18:29 Arrived
BE6235 MANCHESTER 13:50 — Cancelled
EZY7402 AMSTERDAM 15:50 — Cancelled
BE6035 GRONINGEN 17:40 19:05 Arrived
BE6256 DUBLIN 17:55 21:40 Expected 21:40
BE6181 PRAGUE 17:55 19:25 Arrived
BE6025 RENNES 18:05 20:05 Arrived
EZY7404 AMSTERDAM 19:10 21:18 Expected 21:18
EZY7420 PARIS CDG 20:00 20:44 Arrived

I take it you didn't look at the LCY and LHR list of delays and cancellations either. The GVA cancellation was due to snow at GVA - the outbound aircraft diverted to LYS but let's not let the facts get in the way. Anyway SEN is picking up a few STN bizjet diversions at the moment.

I think you're getting a bit defensive - adsf1234 said:

No mention of whose fault it was or any comparison with other airports. Being generous and only counting delays of over an hour, the list copied earlier from the airports website shows 10 out of 13 flights delayed or cancelled. I think describing that as "a host" seems like fair comment in the context.

As I said earlier, pax don't care why they are inconvenienced. A cancellation is a cancellation.

If I've made any factual errors, happy to be corrected.

LTNman didn't ask about LCY and LHR. Not sure why you are.

Expressflight - The capacity of some posters on here to take any opportunity to bring SEN down amazes me.

On a day when all airports north of the Thames suffered severe delays and cancellations they pick on SEN, as if it was the only airport affected.

From what I gather, SEN runway's closure was by far shorter than either Luton's or Stansted's and most of the delays were caused by events outside of SEN's control, i.e. weather conditions at destination airports.

Please continue to post your informative views, which I personally look forward to reading.

SEN did pretty well today by the look of it. In addition to several bizjets Cityflyer E-jets from Palma and Rimini diverted in this evening.

southender

You're quite right regarding the few posters who will take any excuse to hammer SEN - although in at least one case it's actually Stobart that is their bete noire and not the airport itself.

When a response is made like "LTNman didn't ask about LCY and LHR. Not sure why you are." it makes you realise there is absolutely no point in replying and I will try to make that my policy in future.

There was a problem last night though, the GLA and MAN flights came down to Essex/Herts then headed back up north to Liverpool.

Any criticism of SEN's performance can only be made in the context of all UK airports suffering from the snow. I see LHR has a couple of hundred cancellations again today (Monday) mainly due to positioning issues. If they are struggling, with all their resources, just exactly does anyone expect at SEN?

Moving on
 

Calm down everyone - seems you can't post a statement of fact on here without the rose-tinted SEN supporters coming out in force to denounce the naysayers.

Moving on....

The airport owners made the following statement last Thursday:

We reported in the AGM statement in June an expectation to pay an increased quarterly dividend of 4.5p per share, starting with the payment made on 7 July 2017. Dividends of 4.5p per share were paid on 6 October 2017 and the Board has now declared a further interim dividend of 4.5p per share which will be paid on 19 January 2018 to shareholders on the register as at 22 December 2017.

Subject to Board approval, further quarterly dividend payments of 4.5p per share will be made on 13 April 2018. The Group has non-operating asset resources available to support the dividend until 2022, and thereafter dividends are expected to be funded out of operating profits.

Given that the airport is limited to 53,300 annual movements, which the airport owner estimates will deliver circa 2m passengers per annum, do SEN observers believe that a) the airport can be profitable, b) and pay-back the investment in it, and c) deliver a dividend to shareholders with such limited annual movements?

[Hopefully I phrased my question in such a way so as not to upset anyone...]

The only problem with that is the airport will never achieve two million passengers annually unfortunately. Not knocking just trying to be realistic.

I wouldn't say that SEN can never reach 2mppa. I think it probably will although wouldn't now like to predict when that might happen.

The big announcement that was expected to be made last month would in fact have resulted in 2mppa very nearly being reached in 2018 and it's still not clear, to me at least, whether it was only a postponement to the plans or a curtailment. Certainly at the moment the planned operation has not been announced anywhere else.

I hope that even the fiercest critics will accept that SEN has been unlucky with the two hoped-for new operations for 2018 not coming to fruition. It seems that the Monarch collapse and resulting slots becoming available plus the Brexit uncertainty contributed greatly to this. Setting up at SEN is obviously seen as more risky than expanding existing LON operations in the current uncertain political and social climate.

It's certainly an undisputed fact that SEN's operational limitations do hinder its growth potential but not to such an extent that 2mppa cannot be achieved in my view.

Is there not scope for Stobart Air to put on extra flights to generate a critical mass of passenger numbers that might put the airport more firmly on the map?

Looks like a whole host of diversions from LCY this morning.

When Luton was hovering around 2 million passengers for years I would have said it was not possible for Luton to have a capacity of 18 million passengers yet from next year it will with passengers to match. I can't see any reason why 2 million is not achievable for Southend

I'm not sure how many are needed for 'critical mass' however, having taken the decision to dramatically expand their Flybe franchise, including moving beyond being just an ATR regional service operator, it's perfectly possible they'll get even more ambitious and attempt significant further growth, possibly by acquisition.

But you can't get away from the fact that in the last couple of years there has been precisely zero new operators at SEN (please don't throw Sea-Air or Powdair at me) and that's quite damning no matter how unlucky they've been or close they've come.

Personally, I can't see this aircraft movement / pax numbers matter being too much of an obstacle to growth. Let's just hope it needs dealing with.

a) the airport can be profitable, YES

b) and pay-back the investment in it, NO

and c) deliver a dividend to shareholders with such limited annual movements? YES, but probably not as high as 4.5p.