Ryanair opens Southend base, kickstarting Essex airport war

Stansted, the much bigger airport across the county, is watching with interest

Essex to Europe: the flight path of Ryanair's first flight from Southend to Slovakia (FlightRadar24)

The airport that was once the third-busiest in Britain – after Heathrow and Manchester – is continuing its renaissance.

Southend airport has become the latest base for Ryanair. Its first flight, to Alicante, departed shortly before 7am, followed immediately by another to Kosice in Slovakia and a third to Dublin.

Europe’s biggest budget airline has deployed three aircraft in Southend, in south-east Essex. It will operate more than 50 flights a week to 13 destinations in eight countries.

Besides serving familiar locations such as Bilbao, Corfu, Dublin, Milan Bergamo and Venice, Ryanair will also fly to Cluj in Romania.

It is also competing head-to-head with its arch-rival, easyJet, on sunshine routes to the main holiday airports: Alicante, Faro, Malaga and Palma.

The move is being viewed with interest from the much bigger airport across the county, Stansted, which is Ryanair’s main base.

Both Essex airports are served by train from London Liverpool Street station. Stansted has four trains an hour, with the fastest taking 45 minutes; while Southend has three departures hourly, with a journey of 52 minutes. But the latter has a much smaller terminal and only a short walk between train and plane.

The Stobart Group, which owns Southend airport as well as Stobart Air and 30 per cent of Flybe, is capitalising on congestion at other London airports while waiting for a third runway at Heathrow.

But its new link between Southend and Newquay is in competition with Flybe's service from Heathrow, which is more frequent and is subsidised, with passengers avoiding £13 Air Passenger Duty each way.

Ryanair has announced a 9 per cent increase in passenger numbers for March compared with a year earlier. Its load factor remains at 96 per cent, meaning only seven or eight empty seats on the average flight.

Next month Southend will gain another airline. From 28 May the Scottish carrier, Loganair will connect south-east Essex with Aberdeen, Glasgow and Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis.