London Southend Airport: Ryanair opens new base

Southend is the low-cost airline's 14th base in the UK

Ryanair has opened a new base at London Southend Airport, with its first flight departing to Alicante in Spain.

Europe's biggest budget airline will operate more than 50 flights a week from Southend, using three aircraft.

It estimated it will fly one million passengers a year on 13 routes to eight countries, also including the Republic of Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Italy.

Southend is the firm's 14th UK base, which the firm said would create 100 cabin crew and pilot jobs.

Ryanair's new base at London Southend Airport will "help sustain 750 new jobs"

In addition, the investment "will sustain 750 ancillary jobs, according to Airports Council International research" a Ryanair spokesman said.

Warwick Brady, the chief executive of Stobart Group, which owns London Southend Airport, said Ryanair's move would help the airport's strategy to have more than five million passengers a year by 2022.

Ryanair has announced a 9% increase in passenger numbers for March compared with a year earlier.

It is the only airline to be included in a list of Europe's top 10 polluters, according to data from the EU's Transport & Environment group.