Southend Airport Expansion

[Mad Cyril]

Pretty much the points I was trying to make in my original post.If Andrews charge a tenner for hand
luggage on top of a nine quid basic fare that certainly doesn't make it a cheap option.

Especially if you are sick in the back and have to pay the fine.

 

[Davros]

Southend/Easyjet have today announced Tenerife (South) as the newest SEN destination.

Booking already up, with travel from 13/12/13 through to 29/04/14 available for booking. Since booking up to 15th June is available on all other routes, would expect this to go live soon too.

Flights currently only look to be on Tuesday and Friday up to end of March, moving to Tuesday and Saturday in April. Some reasonable deals to be had in Jan and Feb, less than £70 return PP if you are flexible with the dates.

 

[Davros]

On a negative note (although not sure how popular the route is) the Belfast route appear to be coming to an end on 5/1/14. Still some cheap deals to be had on that route (low of £46.98 pp rtn), especially Oct/Nov/Dec, so if you were thinking of doing it, that looks like your window for the time being.

 

[Up the Shrimpers]

On a negative note (although not sure how popular the route is) the Belfast route appear to be coming to an end on 5/1/14. Still some cheap deals to be had on that route (low of £46.98 pp rtn), especially Oct/Nov/Dec, so if you were thinking of doing it, that looks like your window for the time being.

Belfast seems popular at the moment, if you try and book a flight departing in the next few days then go and look at the pick a seat thing, you will see the flights are quite busy. But from what I can understand the decision was made a while ago when numbers were not so good.

 

[Davros]

Easyjet rolling load factor for 12 months to Aug 2013 was 89.2%, so i guess anything that is below 82-83% would be seen as a bad route? Depends how the planes have been filling on a regular basis i guess!

 

[Kent Shrimper]

Also looking at some of the airport groups on FB, they reckon this will be the 5th Easyjet plane to be based at Southend, which means even more destinations and the rumour is it will be a bigger a320. Lastly due to the distance of Tenerife it could well open up the Greek Island routes

 

[Up the Shrimpers]

Also looking at some of the airport groups on FB, they reckon this will be the 5th Easyjet plane to be based at Southend, which means even more destinations and the rumour is it will be a bigger a320. Lastly due to the distance of Tenerife it could well open up the Greek Island routes

Yep its a bigger plane 180 passenger seats (as per Easyjet seat selector) so could well be A320.

 

[OldBlueLady]

The Tenerife route is fantastic news! Spent many a happy holiday on the island.

 

[Jam_Man]

We are looking at a Villa holiday in Spain or the islands so Tenerife just took a big step up the ladder as a possible if thats the case!

 

[londonblue]

Yep its a bigger plane 180 passenger seats (as per Easyjet seat selector) so could well be A320.

Did you know the tail plane of an A380 is the same size as the main wings of an A320?

 

[Mad Cyril]

Did you know the tail plane of an A380 is the same size as the main wings of an A320?

Are the seats still designed for anorexic midgets though?

 

[londonblue]

Are the seats still designed for anorexic midgets though?

I believe so, but given that I fall into that category I don't really mind!

 

[Davros]

Funny you should say that. We got on one of the brand new planes flying back from Sharm, and the new seats are excellent. They are about half the thickness of the old style seats, just as comfortable, and give about 1.5-2 inches extra room, which may not sound a lot, but it really is.

I believe the new seats are also considerably lighter, making the overall plane weight about 500kg-600kg lighter, meaning i would guess, that the bigger planes coming in/out of Southend could concievably carry more fuel and therefore fly further (eg Greece/Turkey/Cyprus?)

I believe the 5th plane if to coincide with the opening of the expanded terminal, which gives rise to additional 2 or 3 stands.

Yes, a Greek route is definatley the next obvious step, especially now with Spain covered from 6 different angles! Corfu surely being the most obvious!?

 

[londonblue]

Funny you should say that. We got on one of the brand new planes flying back from Sharm, and the new seats are excellent. They are about half the thickness of the old style seats, just as comfortable, and give about 2 inches extra room, which may not sound a lot, but it really is.

I believe the 5th plane if to coincide with the opening of the expanded terminal, which gives rise to additional 2 or 3 stands.

Yes, a Greek route is definatley the next obvious step, especially now with Spain covered from 6 different angles! Corfu surely being the most obvious!?

I've just remembered. You were supposed to report back to me on Sharm...

 

[madaboutblues]

Couldn't resist it so booked flights today to Tenerife for our silver wedding anniversary in January especially as that is where we went for our honeymoon!!
Prices went up a bit today but still over £150 cheaper than flying from Gatwick :happy::happy:
Thanks for the heads up Davros.

 

[MrB]

I believe the new seats are also considerably lighter, making the overall plane weight about 500kg-600kg lighter, meaning i would guess, that the bigger planes coming in/out of Southend could concievably carry more fuel and therefore fly further (eg Greece/Turkey/Cyprus?)

My dad is a cabbie and picked up an Easyjet pilot from the airport to take to a hotel. He asked about the Tenerife flight in terms of fuel/distance and apparently to get round it they wont be selling every seat on the outward journey (about 30 spare seats) to get the plane weight down. Coming back they can fill the flight.

He also said that on some flights there are always spare seats despite the flight selling out as they think some people are just booking flights at the cheapest price when they're released and then deciding nearer the time whether to actually go anywhere so there's always a few no shows!

 

[Ricey]

My dad is a cabbie and picked up an Easyjet pilot from the airport to take to a hotel. He asked about the Tenerife flight in terms of fuel/distance and apparently to get round it they wont be selling every seat on the outward journey (about 30 spare seats) to get the plane weight down. Coming back they can fill the flight.

He also said that on some flights there are always spare seats despite the flight selling out as they think some people are just booking flights at the cheapest price when they're released and then deciding nearer the time whether to actually go anywhere so there's always a few no shows!

Ryanair used to sell more tickets, they would have 189 seats but sell sometimes 200+ and just hope they had enough no shows. And if they didn't when people turned up and it was fully booked they would just try and get them on the next one or offer a refund.

 

[Pubey]

Ryanair from Liverpool to Tenerife is without a doubt the worst flight I've ever been on. They filled the plane and then missed the slot (which was inevitable because the plane arrived 5 mins before departure) - and then because our slot was missed we had to site on the apron for 3 hours, before a 4 hour a flight.

**** ryanair. *****

 

[londonblue]

Ryanair used to sell more tickets, they would have 189 seats but sell sometimes 200+ and just hope they had enough no shows. And if they didn't when people turned up and it was fully booked they would just try and get them on the next one or offer a refund.

That is standard (and accepted) industry practice. All airlines do it. I think they're allowed to sell up to 10% more seats than there is in the plane. The difference, however, is that bigger airlines (such as BA) can change the plane based on the demand should they need to because they have spare planes. Budget airlines don't have a contingency should too many people turn up.

 

[Pubey]

That is standard (and accepted) industry practice. All airlines do it. I think they're allowed to sell up to 10% more seats than there is in the plane. The difference, however, is that bigger airlines (such as BA) can change the plane based on the demand should they need to because they have spare planes. Budget airlines don't have a contingency should too many people turn up.

Also bigger airlines can rebalance the tiers if there's an excess demand in one tier and capacity in another. I've had 2 upgrades on long-haul (dunno how!) because coach was full and there were free seats in business and premium economy (BA).