How to choose the cheapest Southend Airport Parking?

Used to just rocking up to the official Southend Airport parking on the day and paying as you enter? Perfectly understandable as you just want to relax and enjoy your holiday; however, by using Airport Parking Shop and a tiny bit of planning, you can save money and perhaps find an option better suited to you.

A comparison: Turning up at Short Stay is £65 for 4–24 hours and then £65 for each additional 24 hours. Even at the cheaper Long Stay it is £40 per day. Our lowest price last week was £63.55 for a 7-day stay.

Tempted? Then, whether it is the nearest car park or the cheapest, we give you the answers below in just five bite-sized chunks.

1 – Understand Your Parking Type Options (and what’s usually cheapest)

Quick Insights

Park & Ride is usually the cheapest (you park further away and take a bus), while Short Stay/Multi-Storey, right by the terminal, is the most expensive.

A Deeper Dive

(but don’t worry you will be back to the surface in no time)

The four main types of parking are Short Stay, Long Stay, Meet & Greet and Valet Parking:

• Short Stay (or Multi-Storey) — usually very near to the terminal and just a few minutes’ walk to departures.
• Long Stay (or Park & Ride) — these two names exist because Long Stay is more often used for official airport car park, while Park & Ride is used by third-party providers. What they have in common is that they usually require a shuttle bus or a longish walk of 10+ minutes.
• Meet & Greet — you leave your car and keys near the terminal; it’s parked for you in a secure compound.
• Valet Parking — like Meet & Greet but with the added bonus that a driver will meet you right by the terminal drop-off point, saving you the trouble of even having to park in a designated bay.

If you’re travelling with the family, you may find the Meet & Greet service is best suited to you; if you’re not carrying huge amounts of luggage then a cheaper off-airport Park & Ride may be the best option for you.

Southend Airport Carpark Specifics

Walkable:

Short Stay — directly opposite the terminal; it’s advertised as a few steps away.

Pick Up & Drop Off – situated inside Short Stay, it allows you to pay for just 0–5 mins rather than a minimum of one hour.

Premium — this is advertised as the closest official bays – less than a minute – but when compared to Short Stay, we seem to be splitting hairs – or seconds. If you end up in Short Stay rather than Premium, don’t expect to need your hiking boots to handle the extra steps.

Mid Stay — just a couple of minutes’ walk to the terminal.

Long Stay — and even this one, unusually a bus ride away, is walkable in around 3–5 minutes.

Meet & Greet (Third Party)
The key providers are Maple Parking (Maple Manor), SACP Meet & Greet and Purple Parking Meet & Greet — they will meet you in Pick Up & Drop Off, so just a minutes’ walk to the terminal.

Park & Ride (Third Party)
With shuttle transfer times between 3 – 5 minutes, SACP Park & Ride, Purple Parking Park & Ride and Diamond Park & Ride are the main providers.

Which parking type is cheapest?

Expect to pay more for convenience. Short Stay is usually the most expensive option as your car stays in the closest car park to the airport and your keys stay in your pocket, allowing you a quick walk back to your car. Even though you drop your car very close to the airport, Meet & Greet can still be cheaper than Long Stay (Park & Ride) at times — Meet & Greet providers store your car in cheaper locations, so they can be very competitive. You also have to arrange drop-off and pick-up times and leave your keys.

Using Airport Parking Shop

Tip: By default, Airport Parking Shop lists prices from low to high irrespective of the parking type, which you can see in the blue box. If you are sure what kind of parking type you want, simply hit the Filter Results option above the results and then select just what you want under Parking Options on the left.

2 – Plan to Book in Advance

Quick Insight

Start looking at least two weeks in advance.

(The Quick Dive-Down Part)

The most expensive way to park is to turn up on the day and pay as you enter. Not only will it cost more but they might not have spaces, leaving you with a lot more stress than having to remember to book! Turning up at Short Stay is £65 per 24 hours, so a week soon stacks up. Our lowest price last week was £63.55 for a 7-day stay.

You can save substantially by booking in advance, with the amount you save depending on how far in advance you book: aim for at least two weeks ahead.

Tip: Prices go up due to availability (or lack of) so at busier times of the year, like school and national holidays, you may want to start looking at prices even earlier.

3 – Don’t Rely Just on Southend Official Car Parks

Quick Insight

Comparing like-for-like, third party car parks are generally cheaper; however, Southend has caveats which we explain below.

A Deeper Dive

(It is only snorkelling)

Southend, like most airports, has its own car parks — and, like most airports, it has third-party operators providing parking options. You may have read about rogue parking operators at airports and understandably that can be off-putting, but the reality is that lots of trusted, established providers run car parks all across the UK.

Southend official car parks — Short Stay, Premium, Mid Stay and Long Stay. The rest are third-party.

Why no third-party Short Stay? – By virtue of short stay needing to offer a short walk and therefore be near the terminal and on the airport grounds, it is usually the preserve of the official airport parking – with third party operators focused on Park & Ride and Meet & Greet.

Is official or third-party the cheapest?

Comparing like-for-like (e.g., Meet & Greet vs Meet & Greet; Park & Ride vs Park & Ride), official is more often than not pricier. However, at Southend it is very difficult to do this. Why do I say this? Well, the Long Stay is a very short walk to the terminal – no bus required – so doesn’t compare to the third party which all require a short bus (I am assuming you value not having to get a bus as a positive). Anyway, something that is still valid is that the overall cheapest options are still the third-party ones.

Tip: It might be considered that the official car park has better facilities or convenience, but not necessarily; remember to check features like distance to terminal and shuttle bus schedules.

Using Airport Parking Shop

Airport Parking Shop lets you compare official and third-party side-by-side by parking type. For example, anything requiring a bus sits under Park & Ride — we don’t hide bus-served official options under the “on-airport” filter.

4 – Compare Parking Features to Find the Best Value

There is very likely to be more than one provider of your chosen parking option type – For example, there are 3 Meet & Greet providers at Southend Airport. Therefore, once you’ve decided on a parking type, compare what the providers offer to get the right balance of price and convenience:

• Transfer time & frequency: walk or shuttle time and how often for the shuttle.
• Distance from terminal: check how many miles away your Meet & Greet is taking your vehicle.
• Keys: leave keys is often cheaper; keep keys is a convenience premium.
• Booking flexibility: fully flexible vs pay-now/non-refundable.
• Opening hours: 24/7 collection for late/early flights.
• Accessibility: step-free routes, Blue Badge bays.
• Security & reviews: independent accreditation, recent ratings.
• Total price, not headline: watch out-of-hours, late-return, or oversized-vehicle fees.

Using Airport Parking Shop

Tip: After doing a search the features above will be displayed in the tabs, or by hitting the More Info button.

5 – Compare Sites to Find the Cheapest and Save More

Quick insight

Not every site sells every car park, and the same space can be a different price elsewhere. Check more than one site — or save time by using Airport Parking Shop.

The Detail

(I ran out of deep dive riffs)

So, you are ready to save money — you’ve even planned out how many more drinks you can get at the pool bar. But then you google for Southend Airport parking, you see so many sites to choose from, and your head starts to hurt. Which one is best?

The world of airport parking is made up of lots of businesses:

• The official airport car parks usually run by the airport.
• National third-party car park chains — for example APH, NCP or Purple Parking — who have branded, large-capacity car parks where you can park yourself and keep your keys (or hand them over for Meet & Greet).
• Small independent ones who may be regional.
• Meet & Greet providers who take your car to a secure compound that you won’t visit.

Use a comparison site to cut through the noise

This definitely helps but not every car park works with every comparison site and sometimes, different sites charge different prices for the same space. Ever been searching for car insurance and found a provider available on one comparison site and not another, or at a different price? Airport parking is no different with the added complication that some comparison sites are selling their own spaces too.

Search more than one

The key therefore in finding the cheapest price is to check as many different sites as possible. As with anything else, there is a cost-benefit ratio so you might set yourself a target of the top 3 or 4. Or you might just give up!

All the comparison sites have a lowest price guarantee — isn’t that great?

Checking multiple sites for lowest prices is a time-consuming exercise so why not just rely on the cheapest price guarantee of the first one? Cheapest price guarantees are fantastic, but it is down to you to go find a lower price elsewhere, often within 24 hours, and then contact the original provider, send them the link, and wait for their refund. Something most of us don’t have time for.

How Airport Parking Shop Can Help

That is why Airport Parking Shop is here. We compare the car parks for you, and we even compare the comparison sites. We are independent, we don’t have any car parks of our own. Check the logos for our partners above and then look down the search results for airport parking and you can see we work with almost everyone (find one we don’t, let us know and we’ll get on it).

How we save time and money:

• See more options: both third-party car parks and comparison sites.
• Compare providers: see prices for the same space, all next to each other in one search.
• See like-for-like: compare Park & Ride with Park & Ride, Meet & Greet with Meet & Greet.
• Quickly narrow down: filter by parking type, customer reviews, providers and even distance to the terminal.
• Switch dates in a click to see the cheapest.
• Understand feature differences: check summary cards or tap through for full details.

What terminology is helpful to understand pricing?

Meet & Greet vs Valet Parking

Very similar, but Valet is typically a premium handover right by the terminal.

Park & Ride vs Long Stay

These terms are often used interchangeably with Park & Ride preferred by third-party operators and Long Stay by the official airport. In general, both involve a bus ride or a longish walk (depending on the size of the airport). At Southend, Long Stay is on-airport and walkable.

On-airport vs Off-airport

Many comparison sites have an On-Airport filter and a separate one for Park & Ride. The on-airport category might seem self-explanatory, but the search results can often include Long Stay, which may be a bus ride away — similar to Park & Ride. The reason is that Long Stay is usually owned by the airport and so put into “On-Airport”. We think this can be confusing, so we don’t categorise like that. We put all bus-served options together under Park & Ride and all walkable ones under On-Airport so you can compare them like-for-like.

Short Stay

Short Stay doesn’t mean you have to stay for a short period of time. The price and closeness to the airport means it is usually used by friends or relatives sending someone off, but you can park for a week or two if you want. Just remember it will cost you a lot more.

Southend Airport Motorbike Parking.

You'll be pleased to know that motorbike parking at Southend Airport is free!

Southend Area Guide

A beautiful seaside resort in Essex, Southend-on-Sea is situated 40 miles east of central London and is famous for its Southend Pier, which is considered the longest leisure pier in the world. It has fantastic road and rail connections with London and the motorway network, and is an attractive destination for families relocating to the region, as well as offers a wide range of development and business opportunities.

The town has an abundance of shopping, leisure, dining, nightlife and sandcastle building facilities, and welcomes over 6 million visitors per year. Southend-on-Sea not only boasts two major shopping centre's - Royals and Victoria - but also has a wide selection of quirky boutiques.

London Southend Airport, one of London's six major airports, is located just under 2 miles north of the town centre. It is accessible by many means of transport, but if you choose to arrive by car there are great car parking facilities to choose from.