London’s sixth airport has seen its prospects for recovery dwindle after Wizz Air dropped plans to set up a base there and Ryanair said it would not return in the near future.
Wizz Air last year announced a programme of flights to holiday destinations in Spain, Italy and Turkey from Southend airport in the summer of 2022.
But the Hungarian budget airline is now to concentrate on its main UK hub at Luton and a new base at Gatwick.
Glyn Jones, chief executive of the south Essex airport, told The Independent: “We continue to have an expectation that Wizz will fly from London Southend Airport [LSA] in the future, but the airline does not currently have tickets on sale for this summer.
“LSA is in regular dialogue with a number of airlines. The news that easyJet will resume flights from the beginning of May is very positive and we hope to make further route announcements in due course.”
Ryanair, which flew from Southend up to October 2021, has no immediate plans to return.
Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Europe’s biggest budget airline, said Ryanair has “no interest” in returning to the south Essex airport – though he indicated that a return could happen in the next two to three years.
The schedule analyst Sean Moulton said: “Whilst Southend was able to grow when airports around London were reaching their capacity, Covid has dented these airports’ networks and therefore the need for Southend has declined.
“As London’s air capacity grows again, Southend will grow too, but their rate of recovery is likely to be slow and the journey long before it reaches its former glory.”
Southend was once of the three busiest airports in the UK, behind only London Heathrow and Manchester. But as Gatwick, Luton and Stansted expanded, its limited facilities became moribund. A decade ago, the only route was to Waterford in Ireland.
But an ambitious £100m expansion aimed to create an efficient and appealing alternative to bigger London airports, at a time when pressure on take-off and landing slots was increasing.
In 2019, the airport handled 2.15 million passengers, but in the following year the numbers slumped by 93 per cent to just 147,000.
