Southend Airport could be the answer to Heathrow third runway delays

Stobart Group aims to turn Southend into an attractive alternative to overrun London airports

Room for expansion: Southend Airport currently handles just over 1 million passengers a year, compared with 78 million at Heathrow (PA)

Southend Airport is transforming from an obsolete airstrip in the southeast corner of Essex to a moneyspinning substitute for an extra runway at Heathrow: that is the claim from its owner, Stobart Group, which has just announced pre-tax profits of £100m for the year to 28 February 2018.

“There’s absolutely a need for another runway in the South East,” said Glyn Jones, chief executive of Stobart Aviation. “Until then, Southend’s the answer and airlines are beginning to see it.”

This week Air Malta launched flights from Southend to Malta, Cagliari in Sardinia and Catania in Sicily. It joins two other established airlines at the airport, easyJet and Flybe.

Three years after the Davies Commission unanimously recommended a third runway for Heathrow Airport, expansion is still mired in controversy.

While the airport is growing in passenger numbers, the increase is due to planes carrying increasing numbers of people.

Last week, the chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, said: “We’re within touching distance of Parliament voting on expanding Heathrow.” But his firm has also warned that prosperity in post-Brexit Britain could be jeopardised unless the government takes swift action on expansion.

The government has said it will publish a final Airports National Policy Statement for a vote in the House of Commons before the summer recess, with a view to the third runway opening in late 2025 or 2026.

By then Southend expects to be close to its current planning limit of 6 million passengers a year — a figure which Heathrow handles every four weeks.

Mr Jones said Southend Airport could handle 43 movements an hour, with a theoretical capacity of up to 15 million passengers. In 2017 the Essex airport was the fastest growing in the UK, but was used by only 1.1 million people.

Many of the flights at Southend are in the colours of Flybe but are actually operated by Stobart Air. Warwick Brady, chief executive of Stobart Group, called the Dublin-based carrier “a valuable and profitable airline”.

Regional airlines in the UK and Ireland have struggled for years. Typically a regional carrier will develop a route, but once a link is established a big budget carrier will move in.

But Mr Brady, former chief operating officer for easyJet, said “As long as you have the cost structure right, there is a market there.”

Next month, Stobart Group aims to transform another moribund airport. It will re-open Carlisle Airport to scheduled flights, with links to Southend, Belfast City and Dublin operated by Loganair.