London Southend Airport is serving new destinations and more customers while maintaining its unrivaled passenger experience
Situated on the outskirts of Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England, London Southend Airport is one of six international airports serving the city of London, the world’s largest aviation hub by passenger traffic. However, having been voted as the ‘Best London Airport’ by Which? for six consecutive years between 2013 and 2019, it’s clear what sets London Southend apart – its unrivaled passenger experience.
The airport’s small terminal infrastructure enables an ‘easy breezy experience’ for passengers, with fast check-in, small security queues, and the ability to reach London in less than an hour via six direct trains per hour. Now one of the UK’s fastest-growing commercial airports, London Southend is steeped in history. From its early beginnings in both world wars, it later became a fully-fledged commercial airport in the mid-1950s and was the UK’s third busiest airport behind Heathrow and Manchester.
Fast-forward to 2008, and the airport underwent significant upgrades, including a new state-of-the-art air traffic control tower and a mainline train station. A new passenger terminal was opened in March 2012, followed by an on-site hotel, as part of London Southend’s target of serving two million passengers by 2020.
Diverse destinations
Although the airport achieved this goal in 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic changed everything when it hit the UK in 2020. With the number of passengers dramatically declining and many airlines moving aircraft away from the site to protect slots at other London airports, London Southend remains in post-pandemic recovery mode. With easyJet set to return to the airport with new, more sustainable aircraft and exciting European destinations, 2025 will mark a significant year in recovery efforts.
We sit down with Nigel Mayes, Business Development Director, to learn more about the recovery program. “We’re currently seeing fast growth in our traffic, with passenger numbers up 58 percent during summer 2024 compared to summer 2023,” he begins. “We’re excited to have easyJet returning to the airport later this year with three aircraft based on site, which will take our total number of destinations to 20, 17 of which will be serviced by easyJet.
“The three new easyJet aircraft are the Airbus A320neo, a new generation of more sustainable aircraft. The A320neo is 15 percent more fuel efficient than previous models and is 50 percent quieter during take-off and landing, which will have a huge impact on the local community.
“In terms of our network, easyJet will bring 17 new destinations across the beach, city break, and ski markets, including the Canary Islands, Marrakech, Pisa, and a number of Spanish and Portuguese locations,” Nigel explains. “The ski market is an interesting one for us, as we know airports can be a challenging environment for passengers traveling with equipment like skis, boots, and snowboards. As a customer-friendly airport, we think we’ve got a great USP for ski holiday passengers to travel through our system.
“We’ve also recently announced the addition of Newquay to our destinations, which will be a daily flight served by Eastern Airways. This has been very well received by locals, but we’re also expecting passengers from Newquay to use the service to get into the center of London rather than arriving by car or train. We’re expecting to announce some more destinations later this year for the 2025/2026 winter season.”
To prepare for these expected increased passenger numbers, London Southend has a variety of initiatives underway. “We’re actively employing over 100 members of staff and easyJet will also be adding over 100 people from their side, which will be primarily cabin crew and pilots,” Nigel states. “We must consider the additional impact easyJet’s three aircraft will have on our supply chain, so the on-site hotel is preparing for more customers, for instance, as are our aircraft cleaning partners. Our new maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) facility will also help with servicing and maintaining the new aircraft.”
Competitive advantage
With London’s population constantly growing, London Southend’s passenger numbers will inevitably continue to rise. “We know that the city of London is growing out to the East, particularly Stratford, which has seen a 40 percent population increase and is home to the UK’s fifth busiest train station,” he says. “We’re poised to maximize this growth with our fantastic access to London. Excluding London City and Heathrow, the four other London airports are all about 40 miles from the center of London, and Southend has a fast train service to London Stratford in 43 minutes and London Liverpool Street in 52 minutes.
“Our USP, however, is that due to our small infrastructure, passengers can walk from the plane to a train within six minutes, and with six trains into London every hour, they can be confident that a train will arrive within ten minutes. This makes the journey into London just over an hour – a time I don’t think any other airport can rival. Our challenge is to spread this message in both the B2B environment of the airline community and also to future passengers and customers.
Elaborating further on London Southend’s passenger experience, Nigel continues: “Although we’ve got a small infrastructure that enables a quick customer journey through the terminal, we’ve still got all the facilities required for a positive and relaxing experience. We’ve got a great pub selling local produce, an airport lounge, and an array of shops. We also pride ourselves on keeping all facilities immaculately clean and tidy, which isn’t always the norm at busy airports.
Customer experience 
“To enhance the passenger experience further, we were one of the first airports in the UK to implement new CTX machines in our security process, meaning passengers no longer need to separate their liquids for security screening. We’ve remodeled our security area to accommodate the new machines, and we’re already seeing increased efficiency. Our queues are pretty much nonexistent, so if we get a queue between five and ten minutes, it’s a surprise for us rather than the norm.
“We’ve also created a new scheme with Passenger Experience Ambassadors, otherwise known as PEAs,” Nigel reveals. “Our PEAs will be there to help passengers and support them to get through the terminal and check-in processes as quickly as possible, as well as ensuring our facilities constantly meet our standards. All our staff are cross trained so that on particularly busy days or during peak times, we have extra staff to support tasks like clearing security trays, for instance.”
With an excellent reputation for passenger experience and new destinations for 2025, London Southend is making strides in its recovery program, but Nigel is quick to highlight that the uptake in passenger numbers wouldn’t have been possible without the airport’s marketing team. “I believe we have the most creative airport marketing team in the London system,” he states. “We must be creative with our budgets to stand out in the network, and the team do fantastic work for both B2B and B2C channels, with great digital and social activity. We’ve teamed up with local influencers to give away holidays, for instance, and we’ve branded the train line into London with our airlines and destinations.”
As our conversation ends, Nigel turns to what’s next for the airport. “Our main focus for 2025 is to ensure the easyJet base is seamlessly established and successful through both the summer and winter seasons, while also maintaining excellent service for our Eastern Airways routes. Passengers are a constant priority too, so we’ll continue to enhance our infrastructure to provide the best experience for customers traveling through the airport.
“While easyJet will always be our anchor client, I’d like to see us diversify the network over the coming years. There are several inbound carriers unable to secure slots at the other constrained London airports, especially during the early morning peak, but we have ten stands at Southend and a terminal that can accommodate 3.5 million passengers, so we want to fill that with a mix of clients wanting access to London. By targeting these carriers, we can not only hit our pre-pandemic passenger numbers but also provide an even better experience for our passengers and the local community by adding new destinations and flights to our network,” Nigel concludes.