London Southend Airport has announced that it experienced a passenger surge of 247% compared to the first three months of 2025.
New figures released by the UK Civil Aviation Authority have shown that traffic at the airport tripled between January and April 2026 – whilst passenger numbers at London’s other five airports recorded a collective growth of 1.5%, and passenger numbers across the UK recorded an increase of 2.3%.
Data has also shown that London Southend has improved its standings in the UK airport on-time performance table, climbing to the third spot in the country whilst simultaneously retaining its position as the #1 airport in London in terms of on-time performance during Q1 2026.
Jude Winstanley, CEO of London Southend Airport, said:These latest figures show that more and more passengers are discovering what makes London Southend different. We’re growing faster than any other airport in the UK while continuing to improve our national punctuality performance, which is a testament to the incredible work of our teams across the airport every single day.
These SENsational statistics go to prove that London Southend is continuing its progress towards being the easy, speedy, friendly airport of choice for people in London, Essex and the East of England.
If we continue to grow at the rate we are, as well as outpacing the growth of our nearest rivals, we could overtake them and end the year just outside the top 20 airports in the UK in terms of passenger traffic.
With recently announced new routes to Belfast City and Budapest starting in October helping to further boost our throughput, we expect to be one of the fastest-growing UK airports again this year and get close to the one million passenger figure.
