London Southend Airport

If you’re used to Schiphol as your home airport, Southend feels like a refreshing change: a small, cozy airport with a very relaxed atmosphere. The security staff are exceptionally friendly,truly deserving of praise for their kindness and everything is clearly signposted, which makes the whole experience stress-free. Even a free water refill after the security. There are several food and drink outlets where you can sit comfortably. The staff working there are friendly as well, and from what I could see, they work in a clean and hygienic way. One of the eateries even offers a good spot to work on your laptop, which is a nice bonus. The only downside is the lack of European power sockets ( unfortunately I lost my UK plug) The gates are well organized and easy to navigate, so there’s no chance of missing your flight. It’s a shame that more airlines don’t operate from this airport, because otherwise I would happily use it as a hub from Amsterdam. I will definitely use Southend more often for my trips to (East) London.

I never thought it was possible to love an airport. Then I met Southend Airport. We’ve been dying to fly from here since we moved to Leigh-on-Sea almost two years ago, and last week it finally happened. Anyone who saw us as our £80 return trip to Marrakech got closer would have heard us saying (repeatedly) how excited we were to fly from Southend. It exceeded all expectations - and then some. Well, apart from the slightly extortionate fee to be dropped off right at the terminal. But you can’t have everything. Departures: We swiped our way in towards security and the woman on the desk was genuinely chatty. We even had a laugh about my husband’s inability to locate his boarding pass (a recurring theme). Then security itself. Also friendly, also upbeat, and the rarest airport sighting of all - someone who looked like they didn’t hate their job… or us. WHSmith Same vibe. Warm welcome. Properly nice. Quiet area A dedicated quiet space! The dream. It could do with comfier seating (and slightly fewer ‘chapel of rest’ flower arrangements), but it’s still a brilliant touch. Coffee This is where I fully expected disappointment. But the coffee at SKYCAFÉ wasn’t just OK - it was actually good. And yes, service with a smile. A real one. And I loved how compact it is without feeling cramped. No shuttle-bus scrum. No 15-minute hike to the gate. No being herded into a stairwell to wait for boarding. Now we have a problem. We only want to fly from Southend. That’s not practical, but we’re going to try. All we need now is a Southend to Sicily route so I don’t have to spend 12 hours and a small fortune on parking to visit my dad. Over to you, easyJet and London Southend Airport .

First time flying from here. Very quiet airport with hardly any queuing. Had good places to eat and drink. Flights out and back (Marrakech with Easjet) were not full. Friendly departure times. Only slight downside was passport control on return was entirely manual and a little slow, despite there only being less than half a plane load of passengers. We were still driving off from the off site parking within 45 minutes of touch down though.

Avoid this airport. They close during the night and if you have an early flight, you have to wait in the streets or on a McDonald’s nearby. A closed airport during night time is nonsense for the capital city of one of the most important countries, not even in third world countries.

Could have left a full 5 stars rate to this airport if it was only for the security check people, because they were so nice, cheerful and respectful. Once i stepped to the other side, that lady from Easy Jet was so mean to everyone, checking if everyone had a correct bag, i mean yes, but in the other hand, how can you fit 5 t shirt in that small bag ? How can one backpack 🎒 became 48£ expensive ? Its way more than my tickets .. (34€) And that airport looks a lot small and empty but don’t stress out, everyone passes the control very fast and waits in the other side !!

Southend airport. How do I describe southend airport? It’s local. It’s small. It’s quick. You will be walking in the front doors to the departure lounge in 10 ish minutes or less. There’s high-tech scanners, and for such a small airport it really makes it count. Good luck finding some budget grub to go with your budget easyjet holiday, though. The cafe, the shop, and the pub are MASSIVELY overpriced. The food on the plane is legitimately cheaper than the airport food. The toilets are fine, not the cleanest but fine. Therapy dogs are pretty cool!

Southend is a small, quiet airport with a convenient connection to London and generally short queues. The main downside is the limited choice of shops and places to grab something to eat.

For flights with budget airlines, Southend Airport is a good alternative to Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted airports. Very basic airport with limited food choices, however toilets are clean, there's a good information desk, and transport connection provided by Greater Anglia is excellent. The trip to Stratford is 45 minutes, and to Central London is 55 minutes. Train frequency on Monday-Saturday is 20 minutes, and on Sunday every 30 minutes.

The airport is not busy when I was there (6pm Flybe flight). The security was efficient and service was courtesy. Free wifi in the airport while you wait. I tried the one and only one restaurant. Fish-n-chips was A-OK (not great, but didn't have that expectation anyway) and the service was fast.

I do not think it should be legal to put London in front of Southend Airport as it does not serve with transportation to London (other than taxi) after 11:15 PM. I do see great potential in the airport as it usually has a great connection with Liverpool Street Station, but apparently not in the late evenings. Taxis go between 100-120£ depending on how well you negotiate and you have to be really lucky to find people to share that cost with. If that would be fixed my review can easily be a 4 star as it is a cute little and very "straight-to-the-point" airport.

Whilst this airport has the potential to be great, it suffers massively from: 1. Flights arriving later than the last train to London 2. Non-existent alternative bus services 3. Being a painfully slow drive from London 4. Having very few airlines that serve it. 'London' Southend is the clear winner of the 'worst airport claiming to serve London' award. If the above issues were resolved (ok maybe bar the drive there which would be hard to solve) it would get more like 4 stars. It's quick to travel through, it's just not set up to handle anything more than a trickle of passengers. If I hadn't found 6 other people to share a taxi back to London with, I'd have had to find a cheap hotel in Southend to stay the night after returning to the UK!

This applies to all flights in the UK: make sure your liquids fit in a 1 liter sized bag. In your carry-on you can only take one bag for liquids, per person, and the bag must be able to close. Definitely not my favorite part of flying in and out of London.

Very very very small airport located 1h away fron London, but at least flights are very cheap. The train station is right in front of the airport and when you arrive a big sign says: "no need to run the farthest gate is only one minute away". Indeed with 6 gates only it's impossible to get lost. Not a lot of options to eat: an overpriced cafe and an overpriced pub/restaurant (but they serve beer from 5am). There's a McDonald just outside the airport if you want to eat for less money.

Exit from the plane, passport control and on the train to Liverpool station: all done within 5 minutes time! What a record! Its a no fuss and no frills small airport in the Southend but does the job. Do not expect anything beyond straightforward airport because you will just get disappointed. The train that takes you to Stratford and Liverpool St stations is literally stones throw from this tiny airport. The travel time from the airport to the main stations took us approximately 40-45 minutes on a weekday at 630pm. This travel time is better than travel time from Liverpool Street station to Stanstead, which takes about 1 hour. In my opinion, this is my kind of airport: get in and fly out.

LOL 'London' Southend. That's slightly comedic seeing that Southend is on the coast. Unless you're stayin in southend the night after an evening flight, you're going to have to run for the trains or if there are no trains- grab a taxi. (Tip: alot of my fellow passengers on my flight actually buddied up to split the cost of the cabs and although alot of people grumbled, it was actually quite sweet to see people getting talking to other people. This made for a much friendlier atmosphere!) But the departures were such a breeze, its the smallest airport ever so, you're through passed security in a matter of minutes which is super efficient. Not many offerings but the cafe was alright.

Its small. Ohh its so small. Three gates, one shop and one place to eat. Well, its still a decent airport. Only advice: do not take an evening flight into Southend after 11pm if you depend on the trains. There are no trains after 11pm. The taxis to London cost a fortune and your only other way out of it includes a visit to Stansted. Not something I would like to do in the middle of the night.

This has to be the worst airport ever. (I didn't choose this airport, someone chose it for me) but 1. The airplane was delayed 2. We were having lots of trouble checking in and they "couldn't help unless we payed them 50 Pounds for each person in the family" are you kidding me?? Just for asking simple questions. We had to figure everything out for ourselves at that point. 3. We had to 2, 50 pound luggage's and 3 regular carry on bags since there was 5 of us in the family. They wanted us to pay for the carry on luggage's ????? Apparently they charge for every luggage even the carry on unless it's a backpack. Well whatever we payed but apparently there was a glitch online in which WE HAD TO all pay for a carry on luggage even if we didn't have any! This made us upset because we ended up paying 300 pounds extra like are you kidding me??? 4. This was my breaking point for it all since my sister who is 10 years old has autism so she can't go alone on on the seat someone needs to be sitting with her. We also had brought a letter from her doctor that she needed to be accommodated and she didn't they didn't care but as people kept coming they could have asked if someone wanted to move but yet did nothing. I do travel a lot and it was my first time here. I will never book here again. Don't come here. Don't go for the cheap because you will obviously pay much much more. 5. They had us waiting in the gate 8,9&10 which is outside it took us almost 30 min to get in and it was hot. It felt like an over before we even got to the plane we were all sweating by standing outside.

First trip to London, so I have little to compare an airport experience, but I have been to many airports, both small and large and couldn't help but offer my experience here. This is a small airport. You will most likely pay less and possibly significantly less to book your trip through Southend. If you are departing or arriving in the middle of the day, this may be worth it. To agree with the other review, this is a no frills airport. It is small but actually quite nice inside and I am guessing it is somewhat new. It will take you very little time to get through check-in and security but if you are looking for convenience beyond that, this is not the place to book. These are the two issues that I experienced which I found to be fairly noteworthy. (1) The airport is CLOSED from 12am-4am. If you have an early flight, forget about it. The tube is closed around this time and there are no trains that will get you to this airport. It's roughly 55 miles away, so your option will be to either rent a car, take a taxi or take the last train and wait outside for 3 hours until they open. I opted for a taxi and spent around 80 pounds. There was a group of about 10 people who chose to wait outside for 3 hours prior to the airport opening, all wrapped in blankets and laying on the ground. Keep in mind, there is staff inside the building, but the door will remain closed. (2) Carry on luggage size is highly enforced. I witnessed the check-in agent charge someone a fee because his luggage was probably an inch too tall. The guy was furious. I am all for pushing back on people taking advantage of carry on allowances, but this was ridiculous. I was also told by a ticket checker that I would need to consolidate my camera bag with my small carry on bag to make it through security, or pay a fee. I got out of line to consolidate my bags and about 30 minutes later, the ticket checker approached me and said that he checked with security and I was allowed a personal item, so it was fine. Nice of him to follow up, but come on! Honestly, I appreciate small airports, but when you need to wait and pay for a train, then wait and pay for the tube and/or pay some pretty excessive taxi fares and drive an hour and a half to get there, it's just not worth it. If you're going to central London, do yourself a favor and go to Heathrow.

i thought I flew in on the millennium falcon, that's how smooth it was. The stewards wore really short skirts which I appreciated ;) especially on the men. The lines were really short and I moved from check in to departures in a matter of milli seconds, no lie. There was a starbucks but not a single basic white bitch in sight, thank golly. The waiting area was dandy it had a vending machine and a water fountain. Im a big fan of this airport ever since that episode of Eastenders that was filmed there, in fact that the only reason I came :0. anyhoo better wrap this up the planes were the shit, wright brothers eat your heart out. At this airport man can truly ascend and punch theface of God. Ya Boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Barry xxx

Yay London!  I was so excited to make it to London considering I almost missed my flight.  But it was a setback to see the drizzling as we came off the plane, especially since it was hot and the sun was a blazing when we left Paris.  My airport experience wasn't too bad at all. The place was clean, gates clearly labelled and it didn't take forever to get our luggage from baggage claim.  However, the customs line was a bit of a setback.  It took us about 45 minutes to get through customs after debarking the plane.  Once you're past customs, it's a breeze and there's either the National Rail of Taxis as means of transportation to leave the airport.  The customs agent however, was super friendly and asked about our adventure.  He was even kind even to recommend different attractions that was close to the area we were staying in.  He even told us how to get to the location where they filmed Harry Potter and cautioned us that Hogwarts was a bit out in the country so it would take a whole day to explore.

Bringing some employment and revenue into the town, Eddie Stobart has certainly gone to the extremes to make the airport very neat and modern for domestic, European, and global flights though a larger runway is needed for larger aircraft, this isn't currently possible due to listed buildings in the area.

Absolutely the worst airport I have ever been in. Every one is rude and unhelpful. The place makes no logical sense as to why so many planes run delayed and why no one has any desire to help or be friendly in any way. It literally only services a handful of airlines and has less than a thousand people pass through it on any given day.

Worst airport ever - and I've been to a few. I don't expect to be treated like a VIP when I'm flying EasyJet but this place takes that to a new level. Yes it's tiny - very little there in terms of food and drink. But I can live with that. If you're arriving late or early, you're in trouble transport wise - just don't do it (this airport isn't really in London at all - nowhere near - and that in itself is something of a joke here). But what I can't deal with is the rude and aggressive security staff who often take the place of airline reps. You are really made to feel like you're a complete pain for just existing. Try taking a carry on, and you will have it checked three or four times. They love giving you reasons why you can't go through and many people seem to miss their planes. London has lots of airports that are closer and nicer. Try one of them.

This could be so good if they got their act together. I arrived at 2.30 pm last Tuesday and it too 45 minutes to get through immigration - there were only 2 people working there. After that was great, quick to the train, quick to London and quick back the same evening But then the next morning (for a 0745) flight it took just under an hour to get through security, hundreds of people queuing, and only 2 positions open. It was a complete shambles with many people genuinely fearing they would mis their flight and no effort made to speed the process up. It really is a pity as this airport has the potential to be great but ruined by waiting so long to get in and out.

I have used this airport twice recently and thought it was generally good , with some excellent qualities and one or two weaknesses. The main strength is efficiency and quickness, and the humane scale and layout. You get through in no time at all. The air side facilities are modest but improving. The airport could do with a few new destinatiuons

new place and new beginning i hope for areas around southendhope more destinations will add on from this airport