EasyJet To Serve ‘London Southend’ Airport

By · June 16, 2011 at 14:00 pm · 17 Comments · Latest News · Report an error ·

In the vicious media war that is the school playground of airline CEOs, EasyJet persistently teased Ryanair for using remote airports and redundant Cold War fighter bases.

In its (losing) defence to the Advertising Standards Agency in March 2010, the airline said it was “trying to make the point that EasyJet flies to primary airports and Ryanair, in many cases, to secondary airports which are often significantly further away from the city which they serve”.

Today, EasyJet announced its 20th base will be at … ‘London Southend Airport’, formerly RAF Rochford.

We’d love them to rename it ‘Eddie Stobart International’ in honour of the haulage company that owns the airport and maybe have a logo of a slack-trousered trucker on the tail of its planes, but the carrier will position three A319 aircraft there from April 2012 to serve ‘up to ten’ destinations: the first announced being Essex-girl favourite Eyebeefa, Faro and Barcelona, closely followed by Amsterdam, Berlin, Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Madrid and Milan, eight of which are current routes operated from London City Airport.

The airport’s website boasts ‘fast connections to London’ but whilst the new Southend Airport station has been completed and features in the last-published timetable for National Express EastAnglia, trains won’t stop there until more flights are operating.  When they do, there’ll be three an hour from Liverpool Street taking 52 minutes, only 6 more than the Stansted Express, and calling at Stratford, Shenfield and Billericay.

At the moment, only a weekly service to Jersey and Aer Arann’s puddle-jumpers to Galway and Waterford disturb the cattle grazing on surrounding farmland, but a Dutch paper airline named ‘Join’ has big plans for regional European operations linking Southend to Manchester, Caen, Groningen and Cologne/Bonn using aircraft leased from Denim Air.

It’s just looking for an investment of 2.5 million Euro before passing out the hot towels and inflight champagne.

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  • http://twitter.com/jonnelledge Jonn Elledge

    Weren’t Easyjet flying to “London Southampton” at one point? That’s about twice as far and thus substantially sillier.

  • http://twitter.com/johnnyfoxlondon JohnnyFox

    Apart from Heathrow, Stansted, Gatwick, City and Luton if you believe its hyped-up TV ‘airline’ programme, the only other remote airport I know to get tagged with the civic name is ‘London Oxford’.

    http://www.londonoxfordairport.com existed mainly in the imagination of Swiss operator FlyBaboo.com which commenced Oxford’s first international service in 72 years with once-weekly seasonal ski flights to Geneva in December 2009 which weren’t repeated this year, partly because Baboo had financial problems and returned its planes to their lessors.

  • Anonymous

    Joke stolen from skyscraper city:

    London Southend has always maintained a close interchange between air and railway services. 

  • SUFC

    How is the biggest urban area in the East of England “remote”??

    • SOUTHEND-AIRPORT

      I Agree With You SUFC, Southend Is Certianly Not ‘Romote’, It Has Two Train Services And Two Trunk Roads Into London.

      • http://twitter.com/johnnyfoxlondon JohnnyFox

        remote from central London.  I expect the residents around Hahn don’t consider themselves remote either, even though they’re an hour and a half from Frankfurt.

  • http://twitter.com/johnnyfoxlondon JohnnyFox

    Sorry Ben, I’d flown from City-Berlin and not realised Lufthansa have since dropped the route.  Likewise have corrected the info about Belfast.

  • http://twitter.com/MichaelScheron Michael More

    I am curious about the flight prices. Who knows, maybe this will be a good thing – more competition means smaller prices. 

  • http://twitter.com/johnnyfoxlondon JohnnyFox

    Seats go on sale in July.  Be interesting to see where it’s pitched: even if the same as EasyJet prices from Stansted or Gatwick, Southend may appear cheaper overall because – at the moment – the train service is a ‘normal’ one not a premium-priced Airport Express.

  • Anonymous

    Semantics and marketing bravado aside it all comes down to price. And here’s one thing easyJet could do to make their fares lower … which they are not doing! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qylsVkE8CE

  • Anonymous

    Semantics and marketing bravado aside it all comes down to price. And here’s one thing easyJet could do to make their fares lower … which they are not doing! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qylsVkE8CE

  • Danshrimp

    ‘Formerly RAF Rochford’? How old are you? Whoever wrote this sounds like an old grandad looking for anything to moan about. London Southend Airport has existed for as long as I can remember. You even stated that it only takes 6 more minutes than Stanstead. Surrounding farmland? The town/city of Southend clearly doesn’t exist in your narrow-minded eyes.

    • http://twitter.com/johnnyfoxlondon JohnnyFox

      Southend, pop. 164,000, the 104th largest local authority in the UK certainly isn’t a ‘city’.  And lots of airfields were converted from RAF stations and became successful commercial airports – including Gatwick, although generally in the immediate post-war period which despite your rudeness I am not old enough to remember.

      • 4Your-Information

        Southend Is BIG Enough To Be Considered A City! It Is The BIGGEST Urban Area In The East Of England. The Surrounding Farmland Does Not Exist, Infact, That Is Why The Airport Has Had Such Problems Expanding, Because It Is Surrounded By Houses.

        Oh And FYI, It Is Only 5 Miles Further From London Than Stansted, And Look How Successfull That Has Become!

  • http://twitter.com/johnnyfoxlondon JohnnyFox

    EasyJet has now confirmed its summer 2012 timetable and seems to have revised its business model for Southend, presumably based on advance bookings, dropping Berlin, Madrid and Milan from the proposed rosters in favour of concentrating on the bucket and spade traffic to Majorca, Ibiza, Malaga, Faro, Alicante and adding four flights a week to Jersey.

    • Arnold

      Berlin, Madrid and Milan were never officially announced as routes, clearly you saw it on wikipedia!
      Perhaps you missed the time in the 1960s when Southend was the second busiest airport in the country. 

  • http://twitter.com/johnnyfoxlondon JohnnyFox

    I’m not sure why this thread still excites such interest, but Berlin, Madrid and Milan were in the original EasyJet press release which it later modified before offering any routes for actual sale.

    No, I don’t remember when Southend was the busiest airport in the UK, but can believe it might have been about the time I was taken as a toddler to Manchester Ringway where cows still grazed between the runways.

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