I believe 1903 brand has or will be retired.

New route from Tui to Kos (Greece) on Thursday evenings through summer 2026.

Additional weekly frequency to Enfidha (Tunisia) on a Monday brings that route to 3x weekly. Clearly Tunisia is a growth destination for Tui having only launched Stansted ops this summer.

Still an early afternoon gap in the schedule on Monday. My money would be on either Skiathos (seeing as it appears to be dropped from Luton) or an additional Rhodes frequency. Watch this space as the schedules seem to be shuffling.

No Turkish flying on any Tui metal is planned now for Summer 2026. Definitely changing times and trends.

ACL S26 Initial Co-ordination
 

Some interesting slot allocations put in place for STN in S26:

Emirates - Looks like they have been allocated slots for a third daily service as they have 26 weekly slot pairs (3 daily would be 21 slot pairs of course, +5 as cargo?)
Turkish - We already know about these, expected to operate 18x weekly to IST.
Pegasus, Sun Express, AJet and Corendon are all showing further increases. I'm sure we'll see something here. A couple such as AJet starting Bodrum is already publicly known.
Arkia - Daily service to TLV and this is already on sale. They only operated a few weekly services starting quite late in the S25 season so this would be a good increase.
Royal Air Maroc - Have slots allocated to operate for the full season in S26. 2 weekly slots pairs, increasing to 6 weekly from late-June to mid-September. For S25 they operated 3 weekly pairs for the peak period only.
EasyJet - No significant change but looks like a few frequency increases maybe possible.
BACityFlyer - Also may deliver a small increase which remains to be seen. They have up to 7 slot pairs per week.

Air Asia X - Slots allocated for a daily service but these are +60 minutes from requested times. They have also been allocated slots at LGW - Not convinced we'll see this as nice as it would be.
Eurowings - Allocated 8 weekly slot pairs. They also requested 13 pairs at LGW but only 6 were allocated slots. Interested to see if this pans out given their history serving STN.
Aegean - 4 pairs have been requested and allocated but only from mid-August onwards. 11 pairs have been requested at LGW, also from mid-August, but none there were allocated slots.

Jet2 - Compared to historics they have a +9.3% increase in movements and a +12.9% increase in seat capacity. My key takeway from that is some upgauging but not expecting any major change from them apart from maybe some extended seasons on certain routes.
Ryanair is always difficult to tell at this point as they usually hold a significant amount of new slot requests and release them after handback. I don't imagine they'll be much more than maybe a few percentage points increase.

No real change to talk about from TUI, Air Algerie, FlyOne, HiSky, Royal Air Maroc or Transavia.

PLAY has of course gone and there is no request this time from AirBlue.

easyJet
 

Paris CDG returning, two weekly from 5 March. Small increases on AMS, too. Looks like easyJet haven’t completely given up on STN.

easyJet aren't based in Stansted are they?

No but they fly a few routes with away-based aircraft. CDG will be using EasyJet Europe, much like AMS.

More flights to Egypt
 

whilst quite a way away seems STN will finally get a decent offering to Egypt , to compliment the limited TUI flights to SSH

Effective Feb 2027, Jet 2 to begin 2 x p/w Stansted to Hurghada and 2 x p/w Stansted to Sharm El Sheikh

http://www.traveltimeworld.co.uk/afr...turns-to-egypt

Decision due today on the planned increase in passenger numbers.

Escape Lounge
 

Not sure if already discussed?

The Escape Lounge is closing for good on the 28th February.

This leaves the UK’s fourth busiest airport with no ‘pay for’ lounge options. Not that the Escape Lounge was anything more than a semi-posh ‘all you can eat/drink’ canteen experience. Are there any known plans for future lounge options with the terminal transformation do we know?

That milestone number has been a while in the making. There will be some growth for Summer 2026 but nothing major as Ryanair and Jet2 have fairly minimal growth. The latter will have some A321neo's based but my understanding is they essentially replace the Titan A321 leases. Turkish Airlines is the main new addition and various other airlines will have some new routes/added frequencies. There's not much more can be done until the Terminal extension is complete as there's no capacity for additional based aircraft until then, meaning any growth in the meantime has to come from either some upguaging or away-based traffic.

Enabling work on the extension, including the relocation of UK arrivals and reconfiguration of the orientation zone post the security extension is essentially completed. The Escape Lounge will be closed off from end of February as that work progresses. Work on the main extension is due to begin this year. Based on current timelines it'll probably be S28, possibly S29 before any meaningful new capacity can be fully unlocked.

30M for STN
 

A milestone number for Stansted thats for sure- and that number is only set to increase even more, so the additional space afforded by the extension will certainly be welcomed, as the existing layout is now struggling to cope with today's passenger volumes.

On the note of the extension and transformation project, does anyone in the know have any updates on progress please for the year ahead? Also, have the refurbishment works in SAT 2 been fully completed now?

RE. Turkish Airlines coming to Stansted in March this year - does anyone know which satellite they will be using/likely to use?

Air Algeria
 

Not sure if this has been posted before? Looks like x9 flights per week in Summer.

According to Sean M on X.

Air Algerie have removed its Algiers - London Heathrow route from sale for the entirety of Summer 2026 (Winter 2026 returns but subject to change).

Air Algerie to operate 9x weekly flights between Algiers and London Stansted in Summer 2026.

Unclear about LHR slots.

Great news for Stansted though with increased service from Air Algérie.

seem there is a new offering, essence, by escape lounges but will only be available for those utilising airlines that depart from Sat 1, not sure if this is a temporary or permanent fixture as offering appears quite limited which is surprising bearing in mind more full service carriers with a business class like Turkish / BA / Air Algerie , Royal Air Moroc and Royal Jordanian are now operating from STN , emirates of course have their own loungue.

https://escapelounges.com/uk/airport...nsted/essence/

This post appears to confirm the lounge is temporary. The team at STN have said a permanent lounge won’t reopen until at least 2028.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....82004efd7.jpeg

Air Algérie schedules for London Stansted to Algiers for NS26.

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/260130-ahns26lon

Must be a typo, AH2054 says operates inbound on days 2&6 but outbound on days 2&5.

Essence by escape
 

So passing through Stansted on the 4 March and see the escape lounge has closed down for good with a new essence by escape opened over in Sat 1, pretty much next to the emirates lounge. Only suitable for carriers operating from Sat 1 , so will be for like of Royal Jordanian, Jet 2 , TUi, Pegasus, Sun Express, Royal Air Moroc, BA ,A-Jet, Air Algerie, Turkish Airlines etc, seemed quite basic though with no hot food available, but this is also reflected in a lower price point, some pics for anyone interested as below.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0e9dd9233.jpeg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ddfa623bb.jpeg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b062fc180.jpeg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d2a7e346a.jpeg