Good to see that SEN is still spreading a little Christmas cheer.

https://www.essex-tv.co.uk/southend-...llenging-year/

The airports Business Director is predicting up to 20m passenger by 2040. I assume he knows the physical size of the airport and its location? To handle 18m passengers Luton needed a dual carriageway direct to the terminals front door from the M1 and took 3 three attempts to design a drop off area that could handle the traffic volumes that ended the 1 mile traffic jams despite the dual carriageway. I assume the airport sees most of its passengers arriving by train but many if not most would still arrive by car putting great strain on the local road network.

https://www.anna.aero/2020/12/02/rou...-and-no-slots/

Perhaps the internal target for airport management is 10m pax in 2040, but it's the job of anyone working in business development to big up the story a bit...

Here we go again and how many times have we heard this rubbish. 20m is quite frankly absurd when considering all the physical limitations of the airport and will only ever be of 2-3m size. Anything larger is just pie in the sky even when being discussed by someone with a job title of Business Development and this continued rhetoric is becoming slightly embarrassing!

It all depends if they break out of the existing boundary but with the runway dividing the airport in two it does beg the question how they would achieve it. Even 5 million passengers would be challenging.

As a side note this image shows SEN during the pandemic with a large collection of Easyjet aircraft parked up and how close the airport is to housing. Is it even socially acceptable to expand the airport to big numbers due to its location?
https://i.imgur.com/oJIKpsq.png

What's to stop the airport holding company from gradually buying up and then renting out all the homes in the few residential streets (Wells Ave, Eastwoodbury Lane, etc) to the immediate south of the apron as well as the retail units next to the terminal, over the next 10-20 years as they gradually come up for sale and then, maybe in 2030, demolishing the houses + retail units and expanding the airport's footprint ?
Impose a hefty drop-off fee to discourage cars and claim to be a green airport because 80% of pax travel to/from the airport by train

Ok - I'm being a bit flippant here, but you get the idea... 10m pax in 2040 is not impossible

Southend is totally inadequate for 20m passengers - Simple.

Runway, taxiway, apron, terminal, car parks, surface access you name it, physically not possible, even 6-8 million would be a huge challenge. Ok so you could exand, but how, and where more to the point!? The airport is boxed in on all sides by residential and industrial estates. To achieve this at Southend, you're just as well to lay another runway down 50 miles due west for the noise impact and number of residents you'd displace.

It's claims like this that makes me seriously question the crediability of Stobart to ensure SEN does have a future full of realistic prospects: an overspill to LGW and LHR, which to some extent is all STN and LTN are, except SEN were able to deliver the additional peak capacity which even STN and LTN couldn't. Plus how do they intend to embark on such expansion when their airlines are paying next to nothing?

davidjohnson6

your not the airports BD Director are you?

LTNman

Just the same old from Glyn Jones really but extended to a date further out. I really did laugh out loud when I first read the story.

Unachievable claims undermines the SEN message and frightens even more residents who are taken in. This will lead to even more opposition for any future modest planning applications seen as a small part of a big plan.

2019 was an outstanding year for SEN, but this year has taught us that dreams can all too easily wither on the vine and die. The airport needs to work hard, make smart decisions and enjoy their share of good fortune to rebuild from what looks like - at best - fewer than 1 million pax in 2021.

With regard to the residents living close to the airport they have concerns and rights but we are in danger here of going over the top. Their properties are not blighted. Their properties sell at prices consistent with others in the area in so far as I can tell. Given the choice, I would much prefer to live there than next to a busy junction on an A road with lorries thundering past every minute of every hour day and night.

A hundred steps from the terminal to the railway station would impede expansion with so little room between the two. A selling point would become a hindrance.

LCY have published their delayed Master Plan today which projects max use of their own r/w for 11m pax & 151,000 flights pa.

This maybe an impediment to pax volumes for SEN being on LCY`s doorstep together perhaps with airspace division between the two.

STN begins the public inquiry into raising capacity to 43.5m next month which will provide plenty of capacity for Essex & Southend Borough residents too.

Just for the here & now however wondering if SEN has WZZ up its sleeve or v v given Stobarts probable desperation & WZZ with plenty of the upcoming airbus fleet to allocate & eager for a deal too witness CWL & DSA.

The RYR "gamechanger" order will not have any positive influence on SEN in the short/medium/long term of course.

So other than that it's good news all the way!!

If London City have a master plan for 11m on their postage stamp airport It becomes harder to dismiss SEN ambitions. Seeing the likes of Wizz, Ryanair and Easyjet could never operate from City the airport might as well be on the moon regarding the low cost carriers.

Good news for RYR/STN/LCY/WZZ/DSA/CWL so far at least yes.

Did mention sleeves & WZZ though & additionally here perhaps RYR/SEN as MOL is keenly being sought out & seeking out" progressive" airports (which we all appreciate SEN is) to base fleet for the method of putting back traffic.

You know very well LCY has completely different operating strictures & structures...Do not appear to have seen the argument in planning cases that because an airport the size of a "postage stamp" can handle 11m pa then an airport the size of a football pitch in comparison eg STN should handle 100`s of millions.

LCY is not a planning precedent but unique in the world apart from Porter`s island base in Toronto.

MOL definition of a progressive airport is an airport that pays Ryanair to operate there rather than the other way around. Wouldn’t surprise me if one day they would want a cut of the drop off and car parking fees.

That`s why "progressive" was in "....."

Noticed this post from Breathe on the Edinburgh-4 thread together with a link predicting a Wizz base at SEN.

https://www.anna.aero/2020/12/02/rou...demic-started/

Personally, I can’t see it in the foreseeable but I have been wrong many times before!

Any thoughts?

Since Wizz signed up the ‘celeb’ and EZY closed the base a Wizz base has for me become more a ‘when’ than an ‘if’ irrespective of what happens at LGW.