London Southend Airport bosses confirmed to local media in Essex that connections from the Essex airport to Milan Bergamo airport had been pulled by the airline Aeroitalia. Via Echo News, a spokesperson for the airport stated the following, without actually saying the route had been cancelled:

At London Southend, we’re continuing to double our traffic year on year. With our destinations growing rapidly from three to eleven over the past year with existing and prospective partners, we expect to be announcing more exciting routes very soon.

Milan remains firmly in our plans. We naturally wish Aeroitalia well with their existing and domestic routes at this time.

Clearly, London Southend Airport is in a tough spot. Firstly, I doubt the airport, which had invested in significant branding and advertising around train stations to/from Essex, are that happy about losing their first new airline route in a while. They clearly hope they might be able to win Aeroitalia around again with the language used, but that feels unlikely with the airline’s frequent cancellation or changes to route network at previous London Airports.

Secondly, the airport has been involved in a financing issue between the owner Esken (formerly Stobart) and equity giant Carlyle. While I don’t want to get too deep into the details, which you can read more about here (via City AM), none of this news is particularly good for Essex’s second airport.

The airport really needs some regular flights from the airport beyond the addition of tour operator chartered flights to European destination to be a viable option. Let’s watch this space…

Original article runs below:

As an Essex native, I’ve been rooting for Southend Airport - or London Southend Airport to give the full name - for many years. For what it may lack in premium features, it’s unbeatable in terms of speed and efficiency. However, the pandemic wrought havoc for the airport with the closure of easyJet and Ryanair’s bases. Things might be getting a bit better for this Essex airport with recent announcements.

Aeroitalia introduces service to Milan

Aeroitalia - nope, not Alitalia, the former state owned airline, nor ITA Airways, the current state owned airline - will connect London Southend Airport (SEN) to Milan Bergamo Airport (BGY). Bergamo Airport is the defacto low cost airport for the city, akin to Stansted, and is located around one hour from the city centre.

While most ‘legacy’ airlines such as ITA or British Airways fly from Milan-Malpensa, there isn’t much advantage for journey time from airport to city between the two - making this a decent win for consumers from nearby to Southend Airport.

The first flights to Milan should take-off from Monday 25th March 2024 six-times weekly at the following times:

It’s not clear which aircraft type the airline will use, however they operate both the Boeing 737-800 and -900 varieties which are suitable for a flight of this distance.

Who is Aeroitalia? And what’s their track record?

Described as ‘Italy’s new private airline’, Aeroitalia was founded in 2022 with a focus on developing domestic and short-haul services within Europe from multiple bases across Italy. At launch, they announced their first long-haul flights would begin in 2023 to the United States of America and Latin America…which didn’t happen.

With their choice of airports, such as Begamo and Southend, Aeroitalia would on first glance appear to be a low cost airline but that doesn’t actually seem to be the case. The airline offers a ‘Biz’ service with one 32kg checked baggage, priority boarding and extra legroom for a reasonable extra charge. Reading reviews online seem to suggest a decent service offering on-board their flights and a distinct lack of Ryanair-esque fees to trip customers up. I recommend reading this review from Aviacionline to get an idea of the experience.

While the prices for flights are fair, whether the service continues long term seems questionable. From late-2022 until Summer 2023, Aeroitalia served London using Heathrow with a smattering of different departure times six days weekly. Equally, the airline promised service from Florence to Heathrow from 26 December 2022…which lasted all of ten days.

While it is to be commended that an airline wants to add service, the chopping and changing from Aeroitalia at Heathrow doesn’t inspire confidence.

Why could Southend be different?

While the number of passengers flown and lack of name recognition at Heathrow likely stymied it’s success, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Aeroitalia will have the same trouble at Southend. The biggest attraction to Southend is the low-cost operation deployed. There are no jet bridges nor Cobus-3000 transporting you to the plane, with all passengers walking across the apron to aircraft.

Equally, the airline has a solid flight schedule with their new London airport. At Heathrow, the airline didn’t hold slots at the same times on each of their operating days. On Mondays, flights departed at 1530 while on Thursdays they took off at 0910 - whereas Aeroitalia at Southend will have specific slots on each of their operational days. This may seem a small change, but it makes a difference to have a cohesive schedule throughout the entire week.

Finally, as the only airport with room for growth in London, Southend can offer the room for expansion in a cost effective manner that Stansted and Gatwick would struggle to match. Heathrow was too much, too soon for a start-up like Aeroitalia.

Will it last?

Clearly, I have no crystal ball however I’m not certain this route will last. To begin with, there’s a lot of capacity between the two metro areas:

• ITA Airways serves Milan-Linate, a small airport near to the city centre, to London-Heathrow and City two to three-times daily

• British Airways flies from London-Heathrow to Milan-Malpensa up to three-times daily

• Wizz Air and easyJet serve Milan-Malpensa from Gatwick, and the latter from Luton

• Finally, Ryanair serve Milan-Bergamo from Stansted

ITA and British Airways can rely on alliance loyalty, business traffic as well as connecting flights to help fill up their services. easyJet, Ryanair and, to a lesser extent, Wizz have name brand recognition with consumers for cheap flights and relatively reliable service.

Aeroitalia has none of this. Even worse, head onto Google Flights, which for many consumers will be their first port of call, and there is no sign of the airline when you search for London to Milan flights - not even when you click Southend specifically. That will probably come in time, but faced with a wall of options from all the airlines above - why would you choose Aeroitalia?

While I hope that Southend can keep this piece of connectivity, I don’t have too much hope that Aeroitalia’s service to Milan will last long term.