A 35-acre site for a new FBO at London’s Southend Airport is to be offered to private developers. Regional Airports Ltd, which also owns the UK capital’s Biggin Hill Airport and operates an FBO at the Royal Air Force’s Northolt base, is positioning Southend to serve business aircraft operators wanting to get close to the government-backed Thames Gateway plan to expand London eastwards. Southend, which is open 24 hours a day, is located about 35 miles east of the city center.
Regional Airports chairman Andrew Walters said that he welcomes this year’s UK government white paper on air transport, which explicitly calls for business aviation to have access to a variety of airports around London and the southeast of England. “The policy will make the best use of existing airport capacity,” he said, while also questioning whether proposed new runways for Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick airports will ever prove feasible from a political and environmental point of view.
