London Southend Airport station opens

Southend Airport’s new train station opened for business this morning.

The station is on the Southend Victoria to London line, National Express East Anglia’s route.

It will be run by the airport’s owner, the Stobart Group, who purchased the airport in 2008.

The first train stopped at the station at 04:05 this morning. Trains have been running through the station since May but passengers were unable to disembark.

The station will see up to eight train services an hour offering direct links to Stratford (44 minutes) – site of the 2012 Olympics, and to London Liverpool Street (53 minutes).

The idea of a dedicated airport station had been in the pipeline for a long time but it was only when the airport was sold to the Stobart Group that construction work began.

London Southend Airport has agreed a 10 year contract with easyJet, for flights to a number of European destinations.

easyJet will commence operations in April 2012, in advance of the London Olympics, initially basing three aircraft at the airport and expecting to deliver around 800,000 passengers per annum.