Aer Arann to Start flying to Southend from Waterford early next year.

RobitTV

Aer Arann is to start operating from Southend airport, 40 miles from London, following an investment from the airport’s owners the Stobart transport group.

Flights to Waterford and Galway will start on March 28, with more destinations, including those aimed at business travellers, to be scheduled later next year.

Stobart has invested heavily in the airport, which opens a dedicated rail station in December within walking distance of the terminal that will link it with the City of London in 50 minutes. The airport hopes to benefit from the 2012 Olympics and to emulate some of the success of London City airport.

Aer Arann is to emerge from examinership on Wednesday (November 10) following the cash injection from Stobart and other investors. The Dublin-based airline, which flies as Aer Lingus Regional as well as under its own brand, sought protection from its creditors in August. Under the Irish system, troubled companies can do so while they restructure or seek investors.

(But does this mean They will Cancel the Waterford-Luton Serivce?) i hope not!!

dark crystal

Southend seems like an odd choice. I would have thought they would have more customer demand for somewhere like Liverpool or Edinburgh.

mike65

Hard to see why they woud keep both, esp as they are equi-distant from London.

looksee

Probably Luton is a more expensive option, they could get a better deal at Southend.

AdMMM

dark crystal wrote: »

Southend seems like an odd choice. I would have thought they would have more customer demand for somewhere like Liverpool or Edinburgh.

But when you have a group based in Southend injecting your business with cash, with the sole intention of developing a route between the two airports, it's difficult to look at alternatives!

deisedevil

Glad to see Aer Arann sorting things out so quickly but I'm really hoping they can keep the Luton flight going. It's been very handy for work. Might not be too bad though if the rail service is decent.

wellboy76

Look lads, so long as there are still flights going from Waterford thats a good thing.

So long as they dont end up in Ulaan Bator

Junior

AdMMM wrote: »

But when you have a group based in Southend injecting your business with cash, with the sole intention of developing a route between the two airports, it's difficult to look at alternatives!

Don't Stobart own/have shares in Southend Airport as well ?

Plastikman_eire

Junior wrote: »

Don't Stobart own/have shares in Southend Airport as well ?

Yeah they do according to the 1st post.

This new route suits me perfectly, I use the Luton service weekly, and until now it has been taking me over an hour to drive to my destination in SE london. So coming in from essex will mean I dont have to go half way around the M25 anymore. Nice.

wellboy76

Place looks no bigger than Waterford Airport.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=airport&sll=51.566667,0.69952&sspn=0,0.104628&ie=UTF8&layer=c&cbll=51.566694,0.698824&panoid=fcmPWeRSsm_5S8ePtZM_Wg&cbp=12,20,,0,5&rq=1&ev=p&radius=2.7&split=1&hq=airport&hnear=&ll=51.566667,0.699005&spn=0.00112,0.104628&z=14

Would be handier if you need to get to the docklands

puppetmaster

wellboy76 wrote: »

Look lads, so long as there are still flights going from Waterford thats a good thing.

So long as they dont end up in Ulaan Bator

+1

If the southend route keeps em in waterford more routes will follow when things pick up.

merlante

Looks like it will be just as good for London, but terrible for connecting flights. As in, you could fly to Galway or Jersey once a week -- and we can fly directly to Galway.

With Luton, you had an Easyjet hub. This is a terrible shame. Still, I do reckon they will try to get some low cost carrier in there to create a hub with low taxes.

The airport once carried 700K passengers per year back in its heyday so it *should* be bigger than Waterford airport. That said, Waterford currently handle more passengers!

It really all depends on what Stobart want to do with it. By investing in Aer Arann and the airport, you'd hope that they would invest in trying to get Ryanair or Easyjet or someone in there, to make good on their investments to date.

klipdrift

I hope the keep the Galway route open as i use it weekly and our office is only 15min from Luton. Should the just use Sth End, then i would have to consider alternative route as a drive on anyafternoon to south end is out of the question. + train journey time etc just as bad. so heres hpoing there not thinking of dropping the Galway/Waterford/Luton route.

merlante

klipdrift wrote: »

I hope the keep the Galway route open as i use it weekly and our office is only 15min from Luton. Should the just use Sth End, then i would have to consider alternative route as a drive on anyafternoon to south end is out of the question. + train journey time etc just as bad. so heres hpoing there not thinking of dropping the Galway/Waterford/Luton route.

They said Galway and Waterford routes were moving... but I hope they will see sense and not move all of them.

It's annoying change, but I guess others nearer Southend will benefit... if and when they find out there's an airport nearby.

klipdrift

I worked in South End and i can tell you apart from the wee small dark hours its a nightmare drive from any part of London N/Nw ish. The rail links to london are rammo also at peak and peakish times, soooooo i think its a bad move to tell you the truth. But Im sure it will suit some people.

I wonder if Aer Arann ever bothered to conduct a survey amongst the flyers who use these routes....!, it would have made good sense to do so!.

I had best start looking at Mr O Leary and Co for my travel arrangements.

Better cancel my Easter booking, all though i have several bookings between now and March allready booked.

KC:mad:

Dum_Dum

A new rail station is being constructed at Southend Airport: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southend_Airport_railway_station

It looks like a stopping service into Liverpool Street. This is OK for central London, but Luton was on Thameslink which was good for NW, Central and South London.

Retrograde move in my opinion.

Musicman2000

The Waterford to Luton route would be busiest and most profitable, the landing fees are expensive in Luton, and if these new investors have shares at southend Airport, might be the cheaper option for them to use, But I would much prefer Luton

wellboy76

I think we should be grateful that we will still have a London(ish) service. I thought Aer Arann were screwed and we would have no airport.

Stop moaning, not as if we are going to be able to afford these flights after Christmas anyway!

Musicman2000

Thats the thing with Waterford Airport, I said it years ago, what would happen if Aer Arann went belly up. The saying goes never put all your eggs in the one basket:)

klipdrift

Hi,

Has anyone got any idea what the increase would be in flight times from Waterford & Galway.:mad:

mike65

About 10 mins I say.

merlante

mike65 wrote: »

About 10 mins I say.

Or less, depending on the orientation of the runway, etc. I mean these planes only slow down when they're coming in to land and up till then they are going at full tilt.

Distance (as crow flies)
Waterford-Luton: 460km
Waterford-Southend: 540km

Given same time for landing, how much more time is the plane flying at cruise speed for to make up the 80km difference?

Cruise speed of Aer Arann planes (ATR 72-201): 481km/h

Extra time for Southend flight on that basis: 10mins exactly.

So, yeah pretty good guess.

fricatus

It also depends on the active runway (even if there's only one, it's considered to be two runways, since there are two directions you can land in, hence runway 10/28 in Dublin for example). The active runway normally depends on the wind direction on the day, but may be varied due to concerns like noise reduction, etc.

Southend's runway is 06/24, so more or less east-west. If the active runway is 06 then presumably an approach from Waterford would be more or less "straight in" from the west, whereas if 24 is active, any plane coming from the west would have to fly some miles to the east of the airport before then approaching from the east.

AFAIR, Luton is generally an easterly approach, so planes arriving from Waterford have to go around, adding about 10 minutes. The same applies in reverse since leaving Luton is generally a westward departure so the plane is already heading for Waterford as it climbs.

shanemul

At present Aer Arann have said they will be starting flight to Waterford from Southend nothing about them discontinuing their Luton service so I think we should wait and see as we could see Waterford getting another London route

klipdrift

Reply as i got it from Aer Arann this morning. , how open ended do you like your answers. I was trying to get an answer before i block book say 20 flights for early 2011.


Thank you for your e-mail.

At the moment, it is likely that we will include flights from Southend to Galway and Waterford in future. However, no decision has been made at present to withdraw the Luton routes.

Kind Regards,

Christine Queally

| Aer Arann Customer Relations
| Caislean, Tully, Inverin, Co Galway
| Fax: +353-91-541998
www.AerArann.com

shanemul

Exactly Aer Arann are not going to shoot themselves in the foot and move a flight has is the biggest earner for them

klipdrift

Ohh, i dare say the will move the flights to SEA. I will be more than surprised if they dont.
Anyway, i will hold off booking the flights until something "more firm" has been announced. I mean afterall, if they were not even considering it, i would have expected a reply which said " yes by all means go ahaed and book your flights, the route will be there...! :rolleyes:

cocoshovel

I wish Aer Arann would open up a good London route. the way it stands at the moment is that its cheaper and quicker to go to Dublin airport and fly to Heathrow. Just out of curiosity what are the Landing fee's for Luton, Heathrow, London city and Gatwick?

merlante

cocoshovel wrote: »

I wish Aer Arann would open up a good London route. the way it stands at the moment is that its cheaper and quicker to go to Dublin airport and fly to Heathrow. Just out of curiosity what are the Landing fee's for Luton, Heathrow, London city and Gatwick?

How is it quicker to go to Dublin first exactly? You have an additional 1hr 50min drive, not including factoring in another 30mins for the rare delay on the M50 and another hour in the airport compared to Waterford.

Then the Heathrow Express is still 15-20mins compared with the fast Luton service which is 30-40 (plenty of longer services too) + 10 mins for shuttle bus. So you probably save 30mins with Heathrow, all things being equal. Hardly justifies traveling to Dublin to fly out of the busiest airport in the country.

I think most people find the extra cost worth it when you can get flights for around €100. You won't save much going through Dublin + petrol/train on that unless you get a very cheap Ryanair flight. And Ryanair hardly flies out of Heathrow -- unless something has changed?

old gregg

I reckon for those trips where time is the major factor then you can't beat leaving the house and being at the local airport in 15 mins. Where cost is the major factor I'm happy to do the rabid express and Ryanair from Dublin.

Beefy78

For any film buffs, Southend Airport was featured in Goldfinger and Mike Bassett: England Manager.

I grew up a mile from Southend airport. Stobbard has big plans to turn it into the new City Airport so whilst there aren't many destinations serviced there currently, that should change over the next couple of years.

Selfishly, I'm hoping that ultimately there's a Southend to Dublin route as that would be incredibly useful for me in terms of seeing the Parents!

Kotek Besar

What happened to the WAT - AMS route? That was a step in the right direction for making Waterford airport a viable possibility for long haul flights. It would have been even better if Aer Arann had partnered with KLM, making through-bookings (and through-checkin) a possibility.

Aer Arann partnered with Gulf Air for this purpose at one point iirc, though not from Waterford.

Aer Arann also matched the luggage allowance of any airline a passenger is flying with, within 24 hours of hours of the Aer Arann flight, free of charge. They stopped that too.

Poochie05

cocoshovel wrote: »

I wish Aer Arann would open up a good London route. the way it stands at the moment is that its cheaper and quicker to go to Dublin airport and fly to Heathrow. Just out of curiosity what are the Landing fee's for Luton, Heathrow, London city and Gatwick?

Maybe cheaper, but hardly quicker? I can leave our house in Wexford around 5:30 am on Friday morning and be in the centre of London having breakfast by 10:30 am!
That's fast.
The bonus with Waterford Airport is you don't need to leave hours to allow for security checks or getting from the car park to the terminal.
Also on the return journey, it's great not having to face in to a haul to the baggage reclaim and then a 2 hour drive, you can be out of the airport and on the road in 10-15 minutes and home in 50! If there's only an extra tenner or 2 in the price I always take this in to account when comparing prices.

Admittedly sometimes it can be more than a tenner or 2 ...

Kotek Besar

I drove a friend of mine to Waterford airport once, from his flat in the city centre. We arrived there 40 mins before departure, only to discover that my friend had forgotten his ID and his insulin.

The check-in staff asked how long it'd take us to nip and get it. About 20 - 30 mins there and back, I said (this was back when the new road was being built). She said go on then.

So off we went and back at the airport we were, 10 minutes before take-off. "Right, in you go", the staff said - and off he flew.

You wouldn't get that type of service at any other airport.

Beefy78

I'm sure it will change as the airport gets bigger but on the subject of small airports, a friend of mine flew out of Southend a few years ago to Jersey (which for a long time has been the only Commercial route out of Southend). He was checked in by a guy in a suit then went to the departure lounge. When it came to boarding, the same guy checked his boarding card again and then showed him and the other passengers to the plane. When he got on board he realised that the guy in the suit was actually the pilot.

fricatus

Beefy78 wrote: »

I'm sure it will change as the airport gets bigger but on the subject of small airports, a friend of mine flew out of Southend a few years ago to Jersey (which for a long time has been the only Commercial route out of Southend). He was checked in by a guy in a suit then went to the departure lounge. When it came to boarding, the same guy checked his boarding card again and then showed him and the other passengers to the plane. When he got on board he realised that the guy in the suit was actually the pilot.

Hehe brilliant!

Can't say I've been checked in by the pilot at Waterford Airport, but a couple of times I've flown, the girl at the check-in desk has been the same one who checked the boarding passes and ID on the way out to the plane!

On the subject of speed, nothing beats 27 minutes from my front door to sipping coffee in the "departure lounge" at WAT. For goodness's sake, you could be stuck queuing for security for 27 minutes at DUB!

Teebor15

Can't say I've been checked in by the pilot at Waterford Airport, but a couple of times I've flown, the girl at the check-in desk has been the same one who checked the boarding passes and ID on the way out to the plane!

This is not unusual at larger airports..i travelled through both edinburgh and newcastle airports recently both who cater for millions of passengers each year and the boarding staff were the same people who were sat at the check-in desk earlier. They are responsible for that flight..once check-in closes they go to the gate and board the passengers..then return to check-in desk and open up for another flight.

Beefy78

Yeah same thing happened to me at a BMI flight From Dublin to Heathrow not too long ago.

mike65

Bump for a guardian article Waterford gets a mention.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/04/london-southend-airport

fuzzy dunlop

Kotek Besar wrote: »

What happened to the WAT - AMS route? That was a step in the right direction for making Waterford airport a viable possibility for long haul flights. It would have been even better if Aer Arann had partnered with KLM, making through-bookings (and through-checkin) a possibility.

Aer Arann partnered with Gulf Air for this purpose at one point iirc, though not from Waterford.

Aer Arann also matched the luggage allowance of any airline a passenger is flying with, within 24 hours of hours of the Aer Arann flight, free of charge. They stopped that too.

I agree but there may have been some issue regarding the commercial viability.I think a more viable alternative might be Eindhoven.There is a large amount of traffic to and from this airport from Ireland.What is surprising is the amount of Dutch travelling to Ireland from this airport as well as vice versa.It also has good international links as well as being the main airport and city for Europes tech hub.I thought it was another Ryanair backwater airport but not so,

Beefy78

mike65 wrote: »

Bump for a guardian article Waterford gets a mention.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/04/london-southend-airport

Lovely stuff. The main picture above the article reminds me of being in my parents' car as a kid driving along that exact strip of road and having a decent-sized plane pass literally feet above the roof. Scared the life out of me. The old runway starts about 20ft from the road.

Finnbar01

Beefy78 wrote: »

Lovely stuff. The main picture above the article reminds me of being in my parents' car as a kid driving along that exact strip of road and having a decent-sized plane pass literally feet above the roof. Scared the life out of me. The old runway starts about 20ft from the road.

Hi Beefy, first up, congratualtions on your one thousandth post.

Could you tell me what is it like to work and live in South End? Would you recommend it?

Beefy78

Southend can be a lovely part of the country to live in. The area where the airport is in is near a lot of farm land with quiet neighbourhoods, low crime and good communities. Closer to the town itself there are other very nice areas. My old flat was a few minutes walk from the town centre, was on top of the cliffs with a great view of the sea (well, the Thames Estuary...!) and was much better value for money than I've found in Dublin.

That said, there are also some dodgy areas as there are everywhere. It's certainly not perfect and the High Street on a Saturday night can represent a warzone from too many 19 and 20 year olds having had too many pints of Stella and £1 shots.

Climate-wise it's the driest area of the UK. It has two mainline railway lines into London meaning that you can get to Liverpool Street or Fenchurch Street in less than an hour. That's handy as road access is a major problem. It's got a good school system with four grammar schools, all of which did very well in this year's results (one - Westcliff High School for Girls getting into the top ten nationally for GCSE results).

Jobs-wise, Southend has struggled the same as most places. The main road into town is in the shadow of eight or nine huge office blocks which were all full of workers in the mid to late 90s when I was leaving school but which are all now empty. The biggest employer is probably Royal Bank of Scotland whose credit card HQ is there. HSBC and Lloyds also have a presence in the town, albeit a lot smaller than they had previously. HMRC and the NHS also both employ a lot of people in the area and a card processer called First Data have a big office in nearby Basildon. And, as I said, you're only an hour from London so a lot of people commute there every day.

It's also the home of the longest pleasure pier in the World and a football club who it's never boring to follow.

That was a lot longer than I'd planned. I do miss home.

Finnbar01

Cheers for the info Beefy.

wellboytoo

Just looking at Aer Aranns new summer schedule, and they have put the Birmingham route back on with seven days a week against flybe, that makes 122 seats a day out of Waterford a day to Birmingham, that's a big ask

shanemul

wellboytoo wrote: »

Just looking at Aer Aranns new summer schedule, and they have put the Birmingham route back on with seven days a week against flybe, that makes 122 seats a day out of Waterford a day to Birmingham, that's a big ask

Haha don't know where your seeing that at all cause 1 Aer Arann don't have the capacity to run it and 2 the airport management wouldn't allow it to be run by two airlines

wellboytoo

I have the Aer Arann schedule in my hand given to me by reception in the Airport today, your move!

shanemul

Throw up a picture of it then as the summer Aer Arann timetable is on their website and the Waterford Airport website and neither have Birmingham listed as a route

wellboytoo

now.JPG

There ya go

wellboytoo

I'M A LANGER JUST READ IT NOW MEA MAXIMA CULPA

shanemul

ROFL haha