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.