This international airport has an unusual problem amid the summer travel chaos: not enough flights or passengers

• London Southend airport is suggesting that airlines make use of its spare capacity.
• The airport to the east of the capital only operates a handful of flights a day.

A small airport east of London wants airlines struggling to cope at its bigger but far busier rivals to start using its facilities for some flights, Sky News reported.

Southend airport has put itself forward as airlines in the UK as well as the US struggle with staff shortages and having to cancel thousands of flights.

The UK's busiest airport, Heathrow, implored airlines to help reduce disruption by cutting capacity this summer.

Southend, however, has the opposite problem: not enough flights, or passengers, after airlines cut routes when the pandemic struck. It is operates just only one or two flights a day.

Southend's boss, Glyn Jones, told Sky News: "It's just very late for people, so we may be able to play, candidly, a minor role in it, but a minor role is a useful role if it's your flight that's affected."

The airport had more than 2 million passengers in 2019 and 40 routes but now runs just four routes.

EasyJet resumed operations at Southend in May, flying to Malaga six times a week, with four flights a week to Palma and Faro twice a week using an Airbus A320.

Heathrow placed a cap of 100,000 passengers flying a day amid mounting travel disruptions including lost luggage, delays and cancelations.

Southend is the smallest and newest airport serving London, although light aircraft have used it since 1935. Gatwick to the south of the capital has held the title of the world's busiest single-runway airport.

There are also Stansted and Luton airports to the north of the city, as well as London City in the Docklands, which serves short-haul domestic and European routes.

Southend has its own train station with services terminating at London Liverpool Street station via Stratford.

Luton, however, requires passengers to catch a shuttle bus from its nearest rail station but a monorail is being planned.