The expansion of Stansted Airport is crucial to the jobs market in the area, travel recruiters have claimed.

Last week, travel magazine Travel Weekly reported that the Stop Stansted Expansion group had lost its battle to block the airport’s expansion with the High Court, dismissing the legal challenge calling the group’s arguments “unjustified and without substance”.

“It would be interesting to know how many of the people belonging to the Stop Stansted Expansion group moved to the area before the airport existed; my guess would be relatively few,” Nina Johnson-Bennett, managing director at MSE Executive Search, told Recruiter.

“An additional 10 million more passengers per annum will not only create more jobs in the surrounding area it will also impact on the final destinations to which these transient passengers are heading.”

Ian Brooks, director at Gail Kenny Executive Search, adds: “The local economy and job market in surrounding areas such as Bishops Stortford are hugely reliant upon Stansted Airport’s prosperity.

“However, in the short term it is the wider economic environment and people’s willingness to travel which are more likely to have an impact on job prospects for airport jobs such as ground services staff and cabin crew.

“Stansted has always been a big airport for the low-cost carriers. The prospects for jobs in the future will depend on their ability to prosper in partnership with the low-cost brigade, as this is surely the aviation business model that will survive and grow out of a recession.”