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In the last couple of days, London Southend Airport has launched its largest Winter season schedule in 4 years as the airport continues its growth out of the pandemic.

Sunday 29 October saw the launch of 2 new routes to Paris Charles De Gaulle (CDG) and Alicante (ALC), as well as some of the final flights to Southend’s Summer seasonal destinations.

All in all, the airport had 7 departures, marking the largest scheduled flying day for the airport since Summer 2021, with 1 flight each to Malaga, Palma De Mallorca, Faro, Alicante, Paris and 2 flights headed to Amsterdam.

The launch of the highly requested Alicante route and Paris flight was documented live on London Southend Airport’s Facebook, courtesy of SDTV Live, who filmed all the action from atop the Air Traffic Control Tower.

Down in the Terminal, morale and excitement was high, with the airport hiring a DJ to liven the mood, light bites and alcoholic drinks being handed around to passengers, and staff taking on a French and Spanish theme with their attire.

An overview of Southend’s 2023/2024 Winter Schedule

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Over the course the Summer season this year, Southend Airport has been busy working with its airline partner EasyJet Europe to secure as many winter routes as possible, with the airport managing to yield 5 routes for this winter.

The routes are as follows:

1. Alicante: 4x weekly running on Thursdays and Sundays (Was announced as a year round route)
2. Paris CDG: 4x weekly running on Mon, Wed, Fri and Sun (Also announced as year round)
3. Amsterdam: 4x weekly running on Mon, Thur, Fri and Sun (Initially summer seasonal, upgraded to year round)
4. Geneva: launching December 16th, to run 3x weekly on Wednesdays and 2 flights on Saturdays
5. Grenoble: Launching January 14th to run once weekly on Sundays.

At the peak of the winter season between mid-January and the end of February, Southend will offer 16 flights a week, down 2 from the summer season which hit 18 flights a week.

Overall, London’s 6th airport has done very well in securing its first full winter season schedule in 4 years, passengers and locals, have expressed extreme happiness and positivity for the airport as it slowly but surely builds up its presence again.

Why has Southend’s recovery fallen behind?

London Southend was really quite shining in the years before covid, with 2019 seeing over 40 destinations to fly to, a generous selection of airlines to choose from and a clear future, which saw it looking to challenge Luton in terms of yearly passenger numbers.

In 2019, the airport processed just over 2 million travellers, this success was brutally crushed following the Covid-19 pandemic which slashed yearly passenger numbers to just 400,000 for 2020.

Due to the effects of Covid-19 on air travel, it forced major consolidation of airlines to use their larger hubs at other London Airports, with easyJet and Ryanair closing their bases in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

Furthermore, other airlines that serviced the airport also terminated their routes with a view to capture demand at other London airports, including, Wizz Air, Loganair, Wideroe, Flybe and more.

To put simply, Southend was effectively seen as not needed for the foreseeable future as airlines turned their heads to their more established bases where the passenger demand lied.

So what does Southend need to return to its pre pandemic highs? Well it mostly relies on London Airport slot availability, once other London airports are tight for space and metaphorically cant take anymore, airlines looking for growth in the London area will simply be forced to look in the direction of Southend.

How long that will take is unknown, but with easyJet ramping up its operations to the airport it seems the need for London’s 6th airport is coming back and it will only be a matter of time before other airlines start to turn their heads at SEN.

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Ryanair has announced that they will open a brand new base in Copenhagen (CPH) for the Winter 2023 season. The base will be equipped with two aircraft and will be operational from December 2023.

As well as equipping with two aircraft, the new base will create up to 100 direct jobs for pilots, cabin crew and engineers in a $200million investment.

It must be noted that Ryanair is no way new to Copenhagen, with a strong presence already; making it the No.3 airline at the airport behind Norwegian and SAS.

The low-cost carrier currently operates 20 routes to the likes of London, Dublin, Milan and many more.

Giving SAS and Norwegian a run for their money

Whilst, its great to see Ryanair open this new base at Copenhagen, it is clear that the airline is here to disrupt SAS and Norwegian’s presence at the airport.

Ryanair made this clear in a recent release stating that the two aircraft base will provide unbeatable low fares for Danish citizens.

In addition, they will be able to offer affordable early morning departures/late evening arrivals, in comparison to the very high fares being charged by State subsidised high fare airlines SAS and Norwegian.

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Plenty of benefits to come with the base

As well as providing 100 new, direct jobs at Copenhagen, the new base will provide further benefits when it opens in December, which are: 4 new routes, adding to their existing 20. These new routes are Dusseldorf, Faro, Paris and Warsaw.

Ryanair will also increase the frequencies on its Gdansk and Krakow routes too, 2 of the most popular routes offered by the low-cost airline from CPH currently.

As previously mentioned, the airline will be able to offer early morning departures and late evening arrivals at an affordable price, something many travellers like.

Lastly, the airline will also be able to grow its annual passenger numbers from 2.3 million pax per year, up to 3 million pax per year.

Growing in Denmark as a whole

As part of the new base at Copenhagen, which now marks the second base for Ryanair in Denmark (Billund being the first), the airline has launched a flash sale.

The sale includes up to 50,000 seats being available for as little as 229DKK (£26) one way, for travel between the 1st Nov and 10th Dec 2023. Flights must be booked before the 24th Aug 2023.

Praising the launch of the new Copenhagen base, Michael O’Leary said, “As Europe’s No.1 airline, Ryanair is pleased to announce this 2 aircraft base for Copenhagen, which will compliment our 2 aircraft base in Billund”.

He added that this $200million investment by Ryanair is to help with the recovery of air travel in Copenhagen which “continues to lag behind its pre Covid volumes”.

“Ryanair believes this lack in recovery is due to the high airport fees and high air fares being charged by NAS and SAS,” said O’Leary.

O’Leary further added in his statement that the airline has called on the Danish regulator to lower CPH airport fees and enable all airlines to lower its air fares and as such boost the recovery in Copenhagen to above pre-Covid levels.

Lastly he added, “Danish citizens and visitors seeking the lowest air fares to Copenhagen have long used the Ryanair.com website”.

“Today’s announcement means that from December these low fares will now extend to early morning departures and late evening arrivals and will provide much needed choice and low fare competition to Denmark’s State aided, high fare airlines SAS and NAS”.

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British Airways has added a handful of new routes and made a variety of changes to its short haul route network, for the upcoming winter 2023/2024 season.

New routes all over Europe have popped up as part of the announcement, with the highlights being a new route to Riga in Latvia and Belgrade in Serbia, among other destinations in the likes of Germany and Italy.

As well as new additions, a handful of routes are also seeing positive changes in the form of extensions.

All of these changes cover both BA’s mainline brand based out of London Heathrow as well as one of their subsidaries, BA Cityflyer based out of London City.

Riga and Belgrade

The first new route, Riga has been announced to start on the 29th October 2023 and will run 3 times a week throughout the winter season on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.

British Airways intends on using a mix of A320 and A321 family aircraft on the route and now marks the second major city in the Baltic states to be served with Tallinn being the other.

Riga is in fact the largest out of the three major Baltic state cities (Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius) and is well known for its food culture, intriguing architecture and expansive green spaces.

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Moving to Belgrade, BA intends on starting this route on the 31st October 2023 and it will also run 3 times a week on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

In the same case as Riga, BA also intends on using a mix of its A320 and A321 family of aircraft for the route.

Belgrade is well known for its vibrant night life and extensive history as well as being at the confluence of the river Danube and Sava, attracting many visitors year round.

Cologne and Turin also launching

As well as the two routes to eastern Europe launching this winter, British Airways also intends on giving Eurowings a run for its money, by launching flights to Cologne from London Heathrow this winter.

Flights will run 12 times a week, unlike Eurowings offering up to 18 flights a week currently. Tuesdays and Saturdays will be the only days each week to not see 2 flights a day.

Once again, BA will use its full A320 family of aircraft including A319s to service the route and will allow more options for travellers looking to visit this vibrant German city.

Famous of its Cathedral and museums as well as its picturesque old town, customers will be sure to enjoy a well deserved city break in Cologne.

Heading south to Italy, British Airways will also announced a new route from Heathrow to Turin, which will run once per week on Sundays, starting on the 10th December 2023.

This route will in fact compliment BA’s existing route from London Gatwick, operating under the BA Euroflyer brand, giving customers more options for travelling to Turin from London.

Winter extensions and BA Cityflyer

The British flag carrier has also confirmed that two routes will be seeing extensions into the winter season, now making them an all year round route.

These are Ljubljana in Slovenia and one of the airline’s most recent additions to the network for 2023, Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen (SAW).

Ljubljana flights in the winter will run 4 times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays and the Istanbul route will also run 4 times a week, but on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Moving to BA Cityflyer, BA has confirmed the subsidiary will be re-launching its Milan Linate route from Sunday 5th November 2023 running on Sundays only utilising the Embraer E190. This route hasn’t run since pre covid and will compliment the existing London Heathrow route.

In addition, BA Cityflyer will also be extending its service to San Sebastian in Northern Spain, for the winte season, making it a year round route and will run on Thursdays and Sundays.

Neil Chernoff was present to comment on the network additions saying, “We are excited to be adding European cities, Riga, Belgrade and Cologne to our route network. These are destinations that we think our customers will love offering an alternative to some of the well known cities we fly to.”

“We also know that Italy in particular is a firm favourite with our customers, so we look forward to adding more capacity with flights to Milan and Turin, alongside more choice across Europe generally”.

Flights are now on sale and can be booked through the British Airways website.

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Wizz Air has taken delivery of its first Airbus A321neo to be produced on the final assembly line in Tianjin, China. The delivery marks the first delivery to a European airline with the first Chinese built A321neo going to Shanghai based Juneyao Air earlier this year.

4 years from first delivery

The delivery also comes 4 years after Wizz Air took delivery of its first ever A321neo of which the airline now has a fleet of 35 in its mainline Hungarian brand.

By combining all A321neos across all subsidiaries, the total comes to 95 which is more than half of all Wizz aircraft.

This particular one that was delivered from Tianjin, was the 92nd A321neo for Wizz Air and since then, the airline has taken a 2nd A321neo from this final assembly line.

The Hungarian carrier currently holds the title for largest A321neo order in Europe and as part of its “WIZZ500” ambition, Wizz plans to add up to a further 355 aircraft by the end of the decade.

Praising this delivery, Wizz’s Chief Executive, Jozsef Varadi said, “As the most efficient single aisle aircraft flying today, the Airbus A321neo is our aircraft of choice.”

“As well as delivering exceptional operating economics, it provides the foundation from which to maintain our position as one of the world’s most sustainable airlines. This will help to ensure we continue to decrease our carbon intensity per passenger, even as we grow”.

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He added, “Today marks an important milestone, with the A321neo accounting for more than 50% of our fleet for the first time. It is fitting that we mark the occasion by becoming the first European customer to take delivery of an aircraft from Airbus’ final assembly line in Tianjin.”

“I would personally like to thank the team at Airbus and AVIC for making this possible. We look forward to our continued cooperation as Wizz Air accelerates toward becoming a 500 aircraft Group by he end of the decade.”

Successful operation in Tianjin

Airbus inaugurated it’s Tianjin Final Assembly Line in 2008, building A319s and A320s to start off with, with the first being delivered in 2009.

In addition, it was the first Final Assembly Line to be brought into action outside of Europe, even before the plant in Mobile, Alabama, U.S was inaugurated.

In its 14 year history, the plant has gone on to produce over 600 aircraft for airlines mostly in the surrounding region of China, South East and the wider Asia region.

In August 2022, the plant became A321 capable a significant milestone for Airbus and in turn made all Final Assembly Lines for Airbus around the world, A321 capable.

The first A321 family aircraft was delivered in early 2023 and now the first European carrier, Wizz has taken delivery of its first Chinese built A321neo.

With a successful history behind it, Airbus’s Tianjin plant will continue to see success in building A320 family aircraft and continue to allow for greater ease in reaching Airbus customers all over the world.

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