CityJet (WX, Dublin International) has announced plans to open a base at London Southend beginning in April of next year.

In a statement, the UK logistics firm said it had reached an outline agreement with Stobart Group, London Southend Airport's owners, which could see it using up to four based aircraft at the airfield for use in serving eighteen European destinations.

"We are very pleased to be working with CityJet to add new flights at London Southend Airport," Stobart Group CEO Andrew Tinkler said." This arrangement will open up around eighteen new destinations, giving our customers more choice. These additional services could bring up to 600,000 passengers per year to the airport providing us with further momentum towards achieving our target run rate of 2.5 million passengers by 2018."

CityJet currently maintains a base at London City as well as at Amsterdam Schiphol, Dublin International, Helsinki Vantaa, Paris CDG, and Stockholm Arlanda. The bases in Scandinavia and France cater to CityJet's wet-lease operations for Air France (AF, Paris CDG) and SAS Scandinavian Airlines (SK, Copenhagen Kastrup).