SOUTHEND Airport will welcome five million passengers a year by 2022, its owners have declared.

The Stobart group yesterday announced its annual company results, which revealed a 48.9 per cent profit for the year up to February.

Stobart Air, which operates London Southend Airport, said the results put it in pole position to continue to expand its terminal in the future - with an eventual aim of carrying ten million passengers a year.

Glyn Jones, chief executive of the airport, which operates Easyjet and Flybe flights, said: “We are going ahead all guns blazing. This year we expect passengers to grow 30 per cent for Easyjet and 10 per cent for Flybe thanks to the 11 new routes we started selling two weeks ago.

“Going forward we have a short term target of 2.5million passengers by 2018/19 and in the medium term five million passengers by 2022.”

Mr Jones said Southend is now in direct competition with the bigger London airports. He said: “London airports are full to capacity and there will be no new runway any time soon. We are just 45 minutes from London. Work is going on at the airfield at the moment, increasing the number of stands to park planes, going up from 15 to 21.

“That will improve the infrastructure for moving aircraft on the runway . We will have enough runway capacity to manage at least ten million passengers but our terminal capacity will still be five million.”

Mr Jones said the airport will be talking to town planners about future terminal expansion.

He said: “There is no question we could expand there airport but we have always been very respectful of planning conditions.

“It is going to be a long time for another runway in London and in the medium term we can play a big role in providing more jobs in Southend but we will be working closely with local planners. We plan to be London’s fifth airport.”

The group’s results announced in London yesterday showed a profit of £27.4million.

There will be a 50 per cent increase in dividends with a proposed final dividend of 4.5p per share - 18p per share a year, with further progressive quarterly dividends.

Chief Executive Andrew Tinkler said: “We have delivered improved underlying profitability across the Group and put in place the foundations, management and organisational structure to achieve our objectives.”