The irresistible rise of Southend, the 'best' airport in London

The reaction from my friends when I suggested kicking off a week of cycling in northern Italy with a flight from Southend was a curious combination of fear and loathing.

“This is simply unacceptable,” one messaged me, despite being shown that the cheapest way to reach Milan was - by some distance - a Flybe service from the no-nonsense Essex seaside town.

I was tempted to overrule him, if only to enjoy the sight of fashion capital Milan and kiss-me-quick Southend-on-Sea sharing the same boarding pass. Was there ever a more contrasting pair of towns?

I protested that the airport is just 44 minutes by train from Stratford, or 53 minutes from London Liverpool Street (just six minutes more than the Stansted Express), but to no avail. We’ll be flying from Luton.

All of which suggests there is still a lurking suspicion among folk in the capital about escaping the UK via “London” Southend. But it can’t be universal. Southend is the fastest growing airport in the country.

The only way is up

According to data supplied by aviation analysts OAG, Southend is scheduled to welcome up to 977,204 departing passengers in 2018. That’s a 37.1 per cent increase on last year’s figure of 712,842. And this could grow further as some airlines have not yet finalised their winter schedules, which begin in December.

At a glance | Britain's fastest growing airports

It means it is expanding faster than practically every other UK airport. Carlisle will go from no scheduled seats to 24,783, so we suppose it wins on a technicality. Cambridge, which will check in up to 9,920 passengers in 2018 (up 57.9 per cent year-on-year), and Colonsay, which could see 1,647 fliers (up 40.8 per cent), both trump it – but they are tiny. Exclude these minnows and there’s one clear winner.

At a glance | The rise and rise of London Southend Airport

Last year was an equally impressive one for Southend, with a 34.1 per cent rise in scheduled seats compared with 2016. Of the larger UK airports only Exeter, with growth of 79.6 per cent in 2017, could beat it. It really is flying high, especially when one remembers that as recently as 2010 it was virtually idle.

Call it a renaissance

Southend has some way to go before challenging the capital’s other big players. This year’s total of 977,204 seats will make it London’s sixth busiest airport (out of seven, if you’re inclined to count “London” Oxford), and 20th across the whole of the UK. During the Sixties, however, Southend was actually Britain’s third busiest hub, behind only Heathrow and Manchester. During that heyday it handled nearly 700,000 passengers a year to destinations including Paris, Ostende, Rotterdam and the Channel Islands, but competition from cross-Channel ferry services and the growth of Stansted and Luton airports saw its rapid decline.

The seeds of its revival were sown in 2008, when it was bought for £21m by the Stobart Group, which then spent more than £100 million regenerating it.

It’s actually London’s best airport

That’s right. The readers of consumer magazine Which? have rated Southend as the capital’s best airport for three consecutive years. In its 2017 poll - which examined eight categories including baggage reclaim, seating, toilets, queues at security and passport control - it achieved an overall score of 84 per cent, putting it comfortably ahead of London City, which got 68 per cent. Bigger isn’t necessarily better.

So where can I fly to from Southend?

If you’re after sun, sea and sangria, you’re in luck. There are routes, courtesy of easyJet, to Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza, Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Lanzarote, as well as Alicante, Murcia and Malaga. Faro, the gateway to the Algarve is also served, as is Malta.

City break options include Amsterdam, Barcelona and Paris, with easyJet, and Antwerp, Budapest, Cologne, Dubrovnik, Lyon and Prague (and, of course, Milan), with Flybe.

Top 10 | Busiest routes from London Southend

This summer will bring even more options. Cagliari and Catania (with Air Malta) from May, and the Croatian city of Pula (easyJet), from July. Or you could fly to Carlisle. OK, it’s not quite Dubrovnik but it is very close to the Lake District. A service with Loganair starts on June 4.  

But is it really “London”?

OK, so Southend - or, more precisely, Rochford, the Essex district in which the airport is located, is not London. But neither is Horley (London Gatwick), Luton, Stansted or Kidlington (London Oxford). And by car the shortest route from Charing Cross to London Southend is around 41 miles. Which makes the “London” prefix far less misleading than Aéroport Paris-Vatry, which is 103 miles from the Champs-Élysées.

Which UK airports are shrinking?

Of Britain’s larger airports (100,000 annual passengers or more), a significant decline in scheduled seats for 2018 is reported at Doncaster-Sheffield (-22.9 per cent), Shetland Islands Sumburgh (-18.7 per cent), Southampton (-10.7 per cent), Newquay (-10.5 per cent) and Aberdeen (-8.3 per cent). Luton, which has enjoyed 20 years of almost uninterrupted growth, could also see a slight fall in passenger numbers (-6.9 per cent), according to OAG. However, as mentioned earlier, some airlines are still finalising their winter schedules – so more seats could yet be added.

Last year, meanwhile, saw capacity cut at Belfast City (-9.8 per cent compared with 2016), Isle of Man (-5 per cent) and London City (-3.3 per cent).