Irish budget airline finally gets into Southend
Irish budget airline Ryanair is to launch flights from London Southend Airport (SEN/EGMC) from April 2019.
The 13 new routes, which already show on Ryanair’s website, include:
- Alicante (5 weekly)
- Barcelona Reus (2 weekly)
- Bilbao (4 weekly)
- Brest (2 weekly)
- Corfu (2 weekly)
- Cluj (3 weekly)
- Dublin (2 daily)
- Faro (5 weekly)
- Kosice (3 weekly),
- Malaga (5 weekly)
- Milan Bergamo (4 weekly)
- Palma (4 weekly)
- Venice (4 weekly)
The routes will be operated by the airlines Boeing 737-800 aircraft of which 3 will be based at SEN to cover the 55 weekly flights.
Stobart Group owned Southend Airport has had a rocky relationship for the Irish budget airline and in 2016 turned the airline down when it wanted to start operations there. During the Ryanair Pilot Crisis last year in 2017 the airport famously offered free flights to the first 100 Ryanair passengers who had their flights to Dublin cancelled.
Southend Airport has seen incredible recent growth and in 2017 saw a 37% rise in passenger numbers falling just short of 1 million passengers. The airport was also voted London’s best airport by Which? readers that year too.
Ryanair expects to carry 1m passengers per year the airport effectively doubling the Airports current passenger figures.
