What flights used Stansted before Ryanair

[Mojo]

American Airlines ran a short lived Stansted - Chicago service in the 90’s (I think). I think Emirates have a service there now.

Emirates have two flights per day to Stansted, and even have a lounge under construction in the gates 1-19 satellite.

 

[westv]

The Space Shuttle had a one off service.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

The Space Shuttle had a one off service.

Indeed it did - and look at how close we could get to it...

 

[Cloud Strife]

One thing that interested me was signage for flight connections

I've got a small update about this if you're interested in the topic.

It seems that in 1997, flight connections were a thing in Stansted. It worked something like this:

- Transit on international to international flights was offered, via a corridor at the right side of the transit system as you disembarked, before passport control. You'd get off the train, turn right and you'd be straight into the departures lounge. From the information I have, it seems that there was no requirement to be checked there, it was enough to simply walk straight into the departures lounge.
- Transit on international to UK services wasn't offered, you had to clear immigration and customs, collect your baggage and check in again landside before heading into the departures lounge.
- Transit on UK to international services was possibly offered, depending on the airline. It seems that if your baggage was checked through, then you could get from UK baggage reclaim to passport control (at the time, the UK still had exit checks). It's not quite clear to me if the passport control was at the entry to the departures lounge, or if there was passport control before entering the transit train, or on arrival into Sat 1.

I can't be 100% sure, but from what I can tell, the connections corridor was replaced with the corridor to Sat 3. It appears to me that the connections corridor must have disappeared at the same time as Sat 3 was opened, due to Ryanair not wanting to pay for using it.

 

[Lost property]

Worth remembering, that, for many years Stansted was under used and was primarily for cargo, but not a hub in the current form, and maintenance with few pax services. The charter operators did use it, but never to the same extent as the more popular airports plus access was "dire" in days past.

The expansion came about due to the need for extra capacity in the S.East and convenience for London...although in Ryanair's case London (Wick) or London ( Stornoway) would have been near enough if they thought they could get away with it.