Given that maybe in 2 years say EZY look to open a base at SEN or SOU, which would they choose as I can’t see them going with both?!

Well, assuming you are correct and routes are performing well at both, what an opportunity for EZY to suggest they both need to sharpen their respective pencils.

Balkan Holidays have added SEN-Bourgas for Summer 2024. Not sure on frequency yet.

This route was previously announced a few years ago but never actually operated.

Also appears that AMS will now operate year-round with Winter flights on sale at 2x weekly.

I genuinely don’t know what’s worse

Southend or Sunny Beach.

In the 1970s Southend Airport was huge on holiday package flights to the Mediterranean sun belt. This slowly faded away with Gatwick and especially Stansted becoming bigger and better etc. However, there is a really strong catchment locally, something in the order of 600,000-700,000 people. easyJet seemed to do well until Ryanair came in. It has to be sustainable for all parties and type fact easyJet came back at all is testament to their belief in the airport.. I think things will work out though things will clearly be bumpy financially until a sustainably level of traffic can be attached.

SEN's package holiday flights was not huge huge - but it was very popular -
In the 1960's onwards Channel Airways' own in-house holiday companies Mediterranean Holidays, and then Trident Holidays first flew holidaymakers to OST RTM BSL PGP RMI PMI AGP and GRO for the Costa's with Viscounts, then from 1967 added a BAC 1-11 and a year later added the Tridents, but the new Jets were soon delegated to fly from only Stansted, along with Comets they acquired in 1970 to fly big contracts for Lyons Tours and Wallace Arnold.
Channel were sadly not to see, nor would operate the 1972 summer season, which left a void at SEN for a while.

Thomson Skytours added SEN using BY's 737's in the 1970's to Majorca etc, and also local firm Tom Hill Holidays chartered Transeuropa Caravelles for PMI and AGP flying from both SEN and ZSD (as STN was known as back then).

Another local firm Burstin Travel (who eventually went on to form its own, but unsuccessful in-house airline, Princess Air) had a fairly big IT programme for Majorca Malta and Faro etc, which saw Orion, Air Malta, Air Atlantis/TAP, Hispania and other airlines operate into SEN to fly the IT charters for them.
Volotea for Thomsons was about the last one with 717 and A319's to/from Palma.

SEN boomed again when Easyjet came along and EZY ended up with a 7 aircraft based fleet there, but Ryanair entered the patch and as usual war began which ended up, along with Covid seeing SEN with zero flights almost overnight.

I’m pretty sure 7 was the aircraft basing for EZY at STN. Southend never had more than 3 or 4 based airframes.

Just to muddy the waters further, I thought there were 5 SEN-based EZY airframes at maximum? Expressflight will know.

Actually I think the maximum number was 4 with a fifth likely but Ryanair moved in and that was that.......

4 EZY. 3 Ryanair

Yes there were four SEN based EZY aircraft plus three RYR for 2021. There was talk of expanding that number for 2022 but COVID put paid to all that and to everything else as it turned out. Had RYR not come onto the SEN scene I think EZY would probably have toughed it out. I didn't think enticing RYR to SEN was a very bright idea at the time.

Thanks for the correction - I knew there was a 7 somewhere in the history lol

Good to see EZY is back to SEN (albeit not a base) and the uptake I gather, is very high...

Faro from SEN has always been popular going back with TAP and Air Atlantis 727-82's, then 737-200's (when it used to tech stop at Manston on its way to Faro)

Absolutely agree. Warwick Brady seemed to believe as EZY were getting towards the latter years of their agreement with Stobart that they would have to pay a significant increase to the airport if they wished to continue operating from SEN. (Source? Andrew Tinkler former CEO) His cojones were hardened because his new chums at Ryanair (who he took every opportunity to boast would never have come without him) would of course jump on the opportunity that an EZY departure would bring and no doubt increase their presence by at least a couple of aircraft. Don’t really need to go into what happened next, except to say when Covid collapsed demand, the one based airline who may have stuck it out had already made their minds up, to be followed by Ryanair who’s last act seemed to be to shaft Wizz before they left.

Is Mr Tinkler a reliable witness on such matters??

Not necessarily, but without him, IMO, there would be precious little to talk about on this thread.

I think we both said that at the time, and we weren't alone.

I think we all had a good idea of this already but now formally made public... airport up for sale and material risk as a going concern.
https://www.standard.co.uk/business/...-b1089153.html

No surprises there. To cut its loses further they would need to close the terminal and boot Easyjet out. I can understand why this would be painful but the easyjet flights at Southend don’t have the volumes needed to turn a profit. Come this winter it will only get worse. With Easyjet slowly ramping up flights it will be a long time before Southend will see a profit and Esken hasn’t got the resources to last out. Also despite the claims of new airlines and routes the cupboard seems to be bare.

As for the loses sitting at £27.7m, that’s small change. The owners of Luton Airport just announced loses of £232m. Well the auditors did, the owners are keeping quiet.

A handful of flights by non based easyJet units won’t cover the bills. Most of us know that.

Doncaster couldn’t survive with multiple daily flights and based units. It was inevitable that the losses at SEN wouldn’t be sustained. Let’s hope that it doesn’t close down. Sadly I can see this happening. Who wants to buy an airport that doesn’t seem to attract the level of business that it needs to be profitable?

Time will tell and I do feel that the clock is ticking.

'Profit' and 'Loss' are potentially a bit misleading. They include things like depreciation and changes in property value. Earnings is the figure to look for, and it seems like the business as a whole is Earnings Positive (but not the Aviation Division).

As I understand it, the "material risk" relates to uncertainty over the disposal of the Biomass Division. Once sold, Esken's cash position is much healthier, but there is no certainty over the timing....