Hoping that’s a temporary measure as it really does look a bit mediocre.

It's supposedly temporary until a permanent lounge can be developed into the main Terminal extension, but you never quite know under MAG's decision making. What will most probably happen is that area will later be developed into additional retail space.

Turkish start Stansted service
 

Turkish Airlines now up and running on the Stansted - Istanbul route with up to 15 flights p/w offering multiple onward connections to Africa, Middle East, CIS, Asia, Far East & Australasia

https://www.travelwires.com/turkish-...ondon-stansted

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/...rrer=deep-link

£28 for a 15 minute terminal drop off or pick up.

From the linked article above

You can park at mid stay for free for an hour if dropping or picking anyone up. It’s a 10 minute bus journey to/from the terminal that is also free. You’d be crazy to pay those prices when there’s a free option.

People will still pay it purely for the convenience. The Express Set-down is very much seen as a necessity for many passengers, whereas the airports can justify it as a premium service whilst offering free options in other car parks.

STN's free option is relatively generous since the mid-stay is only about a 7mins shuttle ride away running every 10mins. Worst case scenario on paper is therefore 17mins from drop-off to Terminal. Given the capacity constraints also with express Set-down, there is still enough passengers will pay £10 and it be well utilised. Now that LGW are also charging the same fee, it's inevitable for MAG to raise the price in line with them.

On a separate note, TUI have made a change to S27 with RHO dropped on Wednesdays and PMI moving to a morning rotation. That will likely result in a new route with I'd guess LCA or one of the Cape Verde Islands as probably most likely.

The UK is the only country in the world which charges people to be dropped off in front of the terminal.

Other countries wouldn't tolerate the blatant gauging.

Then again, the UK is the only country stupid enough to fully privatise vital infrastructure such as major airports.

To risk the wrath of the Mods and add to MDS comment: The Brits have been paying over the odds for almost everything for the 35 or so years that I have been watching it. When software was delivered by diskettes, all they did was change the $ to a £ and gain on the markup. Many, many paid up.

The irony of the airport calling out the environmental concerns, given that those said drop offs can be made a mile down the road at the mid-stay car park for free. Guessing they don't count the mid-stay drop offs within their car usage numbers?

Sharm El Sheikh going twice weekly Summer 2027 (Wednesday & Sunday). Rhodes remains twice weekly, operating instead on a Tuesday & Saturday - replacing one of the Paphos rotations.

Fasttrack Passport control
 

Flying back into STN next Monday evening around 22:15. The past few times flying back into Luton and Gatwick has meant a very lengthy queue at passport control so contemplating paying for Fasttrack. It's quite pricey compared to last time I've used it however any regular STN users have any insight into how quickly the queues (if any) are moving at the moment? Granted it's (almost) peak Ryanair arrival time so suspect it'll be busy, just don't fancy the idea of a 1.5-2 hr queue as I really could do with getting through as quickly as possible for my onward journey home.

Can’t imagine that it would be more than 15-20 minutes, even at peak

Paris
 

Jet2 to enter the Paris CDG market with a 4x weekly offering from next year. So with EZY now on the route, we’ve gone from a route being pretty much abandoned after AirUK/Buzz, to having two carriers on the route as of next year. IIRC EZY did a short stint/half hearted effort with CDG before closing the STN base during Covid?

Also talk on the Jet2 thread of them entering the domestic market ex STN. Interesting times ahead if they do.

Now if only someone could take Amsterdam seriously…

This might be somewhat of a replacement for Jet2’s Rome and Athens service? Doesn’t look like they’ll be continuing after this summer season.

In other news Lufthansa will operate an Oktoberfest programme once again this Sep/Oct

Amsterdam will be less attractive (everywhere) soon with the Dutch Government slap on €40 to each fare next year.

Emirates
 

EK65/66 (afternoon rotation) replaces EK67/68 (evening rotation) from 1st May, B777 operated. Double-daily service now showing as returning 16th May, but subject to change.

New airline southwind airlines
 

Seems STN will be getting a new airline in the form of Turkish carrier Southwind, operating to Antalya 2 xp/w (Wednesday & Saturday) effective 15 Jul on behalf of tour operator holiday best, details as per below:

https://travelweekly.co.uk/all-conte...-strong-demand

Have they run out of Russian work?
A notable point about this airline is their 777-300s have the highest density in the world, nice!
I assume they will be using their 737-8 Max though into STN.
Does Stansted really need extra capacity on this route, are not Sun Express reporting softer demand to Turkey this summer?

It will be interesting to see if the CAA grants their Foreign Carrier Permit this time around. Concerns about their patronage were, I think, the reason why they didn't have one before.