The airport’s aviation team is heading to Guangzhou this week for the annual World Routes Conference with a hit list of 20 destinations it wishes to secure in the next five years.
Stansted, which secured an Emirates service to Dubai this summer, aims to have 25 new long-haul routes in the next five years. Stansted said its focus was on the Far East, India, North America and the Middle East. Targets are as diverse as Miami, Delhi, Johannesburg and Manila.
The airport’s chief executive Ken O’Toole said: “People from across the region, and businesses in particular, regularly tell us they want London Stansted to offer a network of long-haul routes that will connect them to their key countries, customers and markets.
“Stansted sits at the heart of one of the UK’s fastest growing and most successful economic regions, reflecting the competitiveness and ambition of the businesses trading here. We need to demonstrate this strength of demand to airlines who are not currently serving Stansted.
“For example, we know that over 400,000 people are currently travelling from the London Stansted catchment area to Hong Kong each year.”
O’Toole said he hoped to connect the ‘Silicon Fen’ around Cambridge with California’s Silicon Valley and said Primera’s Boston-Stansted route, launched this summer, was already connecting bioscience industry clusters on both sides of the Atlantic.
He added that the airport had managed to secure six of the top 10 most in-demand routes in the last year, including New York, Dubai, Boston, Washington, Toronto and Tel Aviv.
