London Southend Airport Reviews 37

Had a phone call from my partners daughter, wile she was on a train late one evening. saying she was being harassed on the train to the airport so we go straight to the station to collect her. Us being worried, didn't think about fines or anything else. It being late at night. Only to find the airport very sneakily decided to issue a fine. In the mean wile we move address, the fine was sent to pur old address. Because we never got the fine and wasn't expecting or aware of it yes it went to court and I was a ccj. Now £277.00 pound later I'm stuck with this for 6 years. This airport is run by complete idiot's. I would never use this sad run down airport ever again. Utterly disgusting how they use these company's to rip us off and than cause us financially stress. I wasn't even aware of this.. shame on you southend airport.

I recently attended a helicopter flight with my 84 y/old mother. We had a great time.
Unfortunately I took a wrong turning for the car park and ended up stopping to phone company for directions & then found someone to ask for help & by doing this received 2 penalty parking fines. Will never use airport again. Spoilt the whole experience. Be careful !!!!!!!!!!

What a shame - what should be a really positive experience, using a small airport without the queues and drama of it's big competitors is blighted by an approach road designed to fine those looking for the drop off zone. The drop off zone is not signposted on the access road ! Maybe there is no space left on the posts as they are full of prohibition notices. On entering you will drive down the access road, passing the terminal entrance and over 80 (yes eighty) No Stopping signs, No drop off, 20mph, ANPR and double red lines down the road. You will not, however, find a drop off zone sign. So, once you have given up and you stop, you will get a £100 penalty notice from Vehicle Control Services Ltd who have nothing better to do than follow the few remaining customers the airport has on their cameras. Please note that this is also the case if you stop at the pedestrian crossing with someone on it ! If you visit the Airport website after VCS (the airport operator) has threatened to take you to court and give you a CCJ, you will find that the Short Stay car park is actually the nearest drop off zone and costs £5. If you want to drop off for free, don't enter the airport road at all, take the exit before on the roundabout where you will find a car park, that has 10 mins for free if your poor passengers want to lug their luggage the 10 min walk. Please Please Southend Airport, look after the customer you have left rather than setting them up to fail and fine them.

After dropping my dad off using the short stay carpark opposite the terminal, I noted the ticket machines not working properly and some barriers not operable. I contacted Southend via their Facebook and within an hour, assured me I wouldn’t be charged and they were aware of the problem…. Put my mind at ease and it shows it’s as easy as that to give good customer sevice 👌

First visit to airport having moved here from elsewhere in UK. Dropped son off at airport only to be fined £60....why do airports want to penalise the customers that use it?.....welcome to southend!!!

Realised later that the warning sign was blocked from view

My family (wife, mother and 3 year old son) travelled from Southend to Malaga with Easyjet during the summer holidays.

While other airports were struggling with baggage delays and queues for security, Southend airport was an absolutely delightful experience. The security team were particularly efficient. No barking of instructions. (As a frequent traveller, I'm used to being shouted at.... "laptops and kindles out" or "liquids in a separate box", etc.)

Great service and friendly staff all round in fact. The lady at the cafe/bar, despite handling a queue of about five people, was unflappable and so nice.

The passengers also had a very different vibe to the stressed travellers that I've seen flying from LGW and STN. Everyone was calm and.... smiling!

It's a shame that Southend does not offer more routes, because it is such a wonderful airport. EasyJet's reputation must benefit enormously from the positive experiences of customers flying from SEN.

The only other British airport where I've had a similar experience in recent months was NWI.

Thank you Southend for giving my family a stress free and enjoyable start to our summer break.

Great little airport, clean and friendly staff. Sure it doesn't have a mass of shops to wonder through passing the time until your flight - but who cares? If you go to the airport for shopping go to Heathrow or Gatwick.

IAM a cab driver, been dropping off costumer early in the morning by terminal, very poor sighted, two weeks later received 100£ penalty change, avoid if possible, scammers

Travelled to Marjorca via EasyJet , hassle and stress free . However on visiting the departures lounge and having a quick drink before takeoff I was astounded to see the bar was charging an eye watering £5.50 for a hot Sausage roll . I mean really ? They looked the same pale colour as the ones Greggs sell and no one was buying them. If they were
Made by Jamie Oliver or a similar famous Chef then I could understand . The drinks were reasonable I guess , Lager was I think £6 for a small bottle . Captive market and all that and I understand they
Make a fortune from catching cars stopping in the road adjacent to the building for even one second . Nice to see how travellers are cheated .. I mean treated .

Excellent customer service from the train telephone station services at Southend going above and beyond to help and very friendly! Thank you

Following a minor no-risk issue, namely a 5 second stop at a locked and deserted airport during the pandemic, the Airport persistently sent notices as a follow up to a PCN to an address where we had not lived for well over a year. The fine was £60. At £43,200 per hour, that's not a bad return. Unbeknown to us, the fines increased to over £250 and a CCJ was issued against a 51-year unblemished credit record. We only became aware of the issue by accident. The airport is now finding every excuse to avoid facing up to understand the impact on its unreasonable and greedy stance. Discraceful.

My local Airport and i love it, great experience everytime i use it. Highly recomend :)

You cannot pick up with out paying or having to park a long walk (long if your old) away. It is nearer to park in McDonalds etc. The Short & Long term parking is really expensive.
The worsest bit is the stress you get if running a little late & the access roundabout & roads are jamed with shoppers getting in & out of the shopping centre.
One of the worst airports for getting to by car, Rail is not much better as the trains start well after the early flight times. If you are old or infirm, the walk from the train, over the bridge & to the airport is quite long & challenging.
A stressfull start to any air trip, better to use Stansted.

Speaking as a non resident of the area I can say this is a fantastic airport. Used it three times, Faro, Bucharest and Amsterdam. Bag drop and security done in 20 minutes. There is nothing much to do for your time left waiting though, but if you get your timings right you can arrive later, most people do. And a commercial pilot friend said he loves flying from there; a really friendly place. The parking is very convenient and a short walk from the front entrance. Obviously don't park or drop-off in areas where you are not supposed to. Watch out for the enforcement camera car.

There are zero positives about this airport. In summary, the staff are rude and unresponsive, the entire airport smells of rotten eggs, is dirty and the runway has many potholes. The pilots even look depressed that they have to fly there. I'm hoping it'll be wiped out by COVID so we can demolish it and start anew.

I think the airport is good/functional with more shops being added.
It's always clean and never too busy. Security control could be improved given it is not geared for large numbers (I flew last month on the first flight to Malaga) and it was chaos. Nobody seemed to be in charge. Sadly, this is a recurring theme.
That said, its better than driving to Gatwick or Stansted.
I would suggest they revisit their new parking rules which are both petty and inconvenient.
I understand that drivers would and should receive a fine for parking up but do not fine someone for simply stopping to drop someone off.
This is a shame as there are a lot of things good with Southend Airport but the parking issue is not.

This feedback is in regard to pickup and drop-off parking at Southend Airport and not the airport itself.

In short, my friend just received a £100 fine for stopping at the Zebra crossing for <5 seconds while I jumped out of the car to go into the airport (no luggage btw).

Why did I jump out at that point? We arrived to find a new sign that said the short-stay parking (that previously allowed 10 minutes of free parking for pickup and drop-off) now charges £3 for 0 -10 minutes!

What other airport in the UK has no easy-access drop-off point? So you either have to arrive by bus or train, or park 1/4 mile away in the McDonalds car park and walk without access to a trolley.

Just wanted to say, I think its kinda basic to just think about something like this when planning out an airport. Right?

And £100 just for getting out of a car on a deserted dead-end road? Cheap for the rich, but a half week's income for a pensioner.

From their website, I see they claim there is a free 15 minute stay allowed in the Long Stay carpark no. 3. I don't know if that's true or not (could be I turn-up next time and face the same issue as the short-stay parking); but at the very least, they could make any drop-off/pick-up points CLEAR in your signage. If you ever drive to the airport yourself, you'll see it is very clearly marked as "No Access except for long stay parking". There is no mention of a drop-off point, hence, customers are left with little option except to just stop and get out.

My experience with the airport has been good so far, but I find this issue to be very infuriating.