LUTON -8

[pabely]

Gulfstream

I think the STN location is the one next to Holding Point W3, I'm trying to remember who was in there before....Inflight?

http://www.gulfstream.com/product-su...nters/stansted

I'm sure one of the Essex lads will tell us.

[LTNman]

This is the ground floor of pier B. Looks like for the apron there are 3 pre boarding areas with just a staircase in orange at the far end for the 4th stand.

On the coach side there are again 3 holding areas with no holding area for the 4th staircase. Coach departures and arrivals will be from the south side.The corridor in the middle is for arrivals.

The plans might have changed since this was published though.

[Falcon666]

Thanks LTNman,
I stand corrected, been trying to find a layout of the Pier for ages!

[LTNman]

Arriving passengers to pier B will have to go up one floor to enter the link building. They will than pass through the terminal behind the check-in desks. As the ground isn't level around the terminal I can't remember if passengers will have to go back down to the ground floor for passport control or they are already at the right level due to rising ground. While passing through the entire length of the terminal there are no windows despite the corridor being next to the eastern apron.

As per pier A, departing passengers will have to drop one level to enter the pier before dropping another level to enter the pre boarding zones.

Coaches will pass under the first section of pier B after passengers have left the ground floor to enter the link building. The coach route through the pier can be seen in the second photo of the construction update on the last page.

The photo below was published in 1998 and shows a cross sectional view of the terminal. As can be seen the terminal is actually over 4 floors but only the top two floors are for passengers. The photo shows the arrivals corridor behind the check-in desks.

The photo highlights the different ground heights around the terminal as on the left hand side the the two lower floors are below ground but above ground at the eastern apron side.

[ClearLand08]

Wizzair base

As mentioned by several people here, the opening of Wizzair's base has increased the number of Wizz A320s overnight from 2 to 3, one of which is based at LTN (currently HA-LYR).
On Friday the based aircraft flew LTN - SYZ - LTN - SZZ - LTN - BRQ - LTN

[Fried_Chicken]

Originally Posted by Buster the Bear

Apologies in advance as this is not news about bus shelters or dual carriageways.

From ch-aviation.

Surf Air Europe (Cardiff) has announced it will commence operations on June 23 with flights out of its London Luton hub. A review of the carrier's tentative timetable indicates it will offer daily return flights from Luton to each of Cannes Mandelieu (France) and Geneva and Zurich (Switzerland).

A unit of California-based Surf Air (URF, Palo Alto), the subscription-based carrier will use Embraer Phenom 300 executive jets and Swiss-made PC-12 single-turboprop aircraft all of which will be operated by its UK-based technical partner, TAG Aviation (UK) (VIP, Farnborough).

The first Phenom arrived in the UK over the weekend and is now operated by Birmingham based Flairjet so flights from Luton should begin to operate in due course

FC

[cj241101]

Taxiway B extension

Having examined the taxiway B extension from the mid-term car park yesterday, does anyone know the reason why it isn't going all the way to the turning circle? I assumed it was due to the terrain, except the grass area north of the runway looks pretty much the same height as the runway itself to my non-expert eyes. Surely not another case of only doing half the job as doing a proper job costs a bit more?

[TUGNBAR]

Originally Posted by pabely

I think the STN location is the one next to Holding Point W3, I'm trying to remember who was in there before....Inflight?

http://www.gulfstream.com/product-su...nters/stansted

I'm sure one of the Essex lads will tell us.

Gulfstream lease the hangar from Inflite. Prior to this Inflite used it themselves prior to that Ford Air hangared their 2 X BBJ's. Plenty of space at STN for Gulfstream. Could be a good move for all.

[LTNman]

Originally Posted by cj241101

Having examined the taxiway B extension from the mid-term car park yesterday, does anyone know the reason why it isn't going all the way to the turning circle?

The reason claimed by the airport in their planning application is that as the rest of the redevelopment has a maximum capacity of 18 million passengers there was no point in giving the runway a higher capacity at a greater expense as that extra capacity could not be used.

Other plans over the years have shown high speed turn offs, full length taxiways and taxiways that joined the runway from the east and the west so giving the runway starter strips thus increasing the take off run but this was the cheapest option so yes it is all about saving money.

Also worth noting that while putting in a full length taxiway at the 08 end is straightforward the 26 end would need more of the ground building up. I have no idea if the existing stockpile of soil gathered from the existing redevelopment for the planned 26 taxiway extension would be enough for a full length taxiway.

It will be interesting to see once the taxiways are in place how many aircraft still need to backtrack. A couple of days ago in the still air quiet a few aircraft were requesting the full length including EasyJet. Makes me wonder how they cope with Southend's short runway which is shorter than an intersection takeoff from 26.

[LTNman]

Originally Posted by TUGNBAR

Gulfstream lease the hangar from Inflite. Prior to this Inflite used it themselves prior to that Ford Air hangared their 2 X BBJ's. Plenty of space at STN for Gulfstream. Could be a good move for all.

185 high paid jobs would be lost at Luton if they went. With the council seeming to have unlimited supplies of money and the airport part of the government enterprise zone I would think the council would be keen to work with Gulfstream but finding the land is the issue here if Gulfstream wanted to build their own hangar. Past plans have shown a new hangar line being built along Taxiway Alpha towards runway 26. Over the years hangars at Luton have been built with council money for leasing out so that is another option.

Seems the issue with the new Signature hangar by Cargo is that while it is wide enough it does not have enough depth so lacks the capacity Gulfstream are looking for. It also lacks any office space.

[Expressflight]

Originally Posted by LTNman

A couple of days ago in the still air quiet a few aircraft were requesting the full length including EasyJet. Makes me wonder how they cope with Southend's short runway which is shorter than an intersection takeoff from 26.

It could simply be that SOPs stipulate the use of FLEX thrust settings whenever runway length allows, whereas at SEN TOGA is always used by easyJet I believe.

[Lee Baker Street]

@LTNman, "The reason claimed by the airport in their planning application is that as the rest of the redevelopment has a maximum capacity of 18 million passengers there was no point in giving the runway a higher capacity at a greater expense as that extra capacity could not be used."

If LTN can handle 'any passenger level above 1.5 million in any given month' then that will suggest to me the airport can exceed the 18 MPPA target.

I anticipate that this 'August' passenger levels will exceed or be on a par with what LTN would on average would have handled in total in any full year during the 1980's! Could LTN be handling 1.7 million passengers in August?

In effect, extra stands, a taxiway not yet completed, ATC reaching it's peak-can LTN cope?

I say yes.

In the next few years (LTNman I admit is probably more knowlegable than me) a new lease will attract a new company but that company will want even further growth in order that it's investment brings in a 'return' for it's shareholders. In turn LBC the owner (on behalf of people like me) Luton residents will want further investment and it is people like me that wants 'true investment' not 110 million or even 120 million pounds investment but more like 300 million pounds plus!

Luton Airport was once described as a 'golden gem' it is that 'gem' that needs to be realised!

I can not wait for figures in relation to August 2017 passenger figures! August can prove what 'potentially' the airport can handle in any given year based on current infrastructure!

[LTNman]

Luton could indeed handle more than 18 million passengers if those additional passengers arrived and departed during off peak times and in the middle of the night. The beauty of the Wizz operation is that most of their aircraft are not Luton based so their peaks are different from easyjet meaning the airport stays busier for longer.

We have seen that there is spare capacity on the runway if the taxiways are extended again. More stands can be added in the short term car park which is no doubt the airports plan and the CTA actually has a capacity of 23 million when it is rebuilt for the umpteen time and more parking is added together with new drop off zones. Add to that will be the DART link to Parkway and everything is in place apart from the terminal infrastructure which will be hard to add to.

The only reason Luton is where it is today is that when the terminal was built with its 62 check-in desks in 1999 every passenger had to check in. Now I would say less then half Luton's passengers use the check-in desks. That has nothing to do with the airport but the airlines. It was a lucky break for the airport that has added capacity to the terminal as more check-in desks take a great deal of space but with passengers moaning about the rest of the terminal the airport will have to come up with a cunning plan to put more than 18 million passengers through Luton apart from just making the airlines use the spare off peak capacity.

In the next few years (LTNman I admit is probably more knowlegable than me) a new lease will attract a new company but that company will want even further growth in order that it's investment brings in a 'return' for it's shareholders.

I can't think of a better company to run Luton than the worlds largest airport operator who are running the airport now.

[cj241101]

taxiway B extension

Originally Posted by LTNman

The reason claimed by the airport in their planning application is that as the rest of the redevelopment has a maximum capacity of 18 million passengers there was no point in giving the runway a higher capacity at a greater expense as that extra capacity could not be used.

A full length taxiway B would do much to alleviate the bottleneck caused at peak times when aircraft are held by ATC because of the queue that builds up when runway 08 is in use. Throw in a bit of fog i.e. LVP's and the wait for pushback clearance regularly exceeds 30 minutes. Full length taxiway=more room for aircraft to hold plus no backtracking the runway=improved on time performance, which is, of course, based on pushback times not take off times.

[LGS6753]

I guess that a tension will eventually emerge between the Council, which is paid per passenger and the operator which benefits from executive jet movements. If fewer of the latter were allowed, runway and parking capacity would be freed up for passenger ops. The capacity constraint would then become the terminal.

[cj241101]

Pier A

Originally Posted by LTNman

This is the ground floor of pier B. Looks like for the apron there are 3 pre boarding areas with just a staircase in orange at the far end for the 4th stand.

On the coach side there are again 3 holding areas with no holding area for the 4th staircase. Coach departures and arrivals will be from the south side.The corridor in the middle is for arrivals.

Some observations on the recent redevelopment of pier A, which has increased the number of boarding gates from 6 to 8 and added ground level pre board areas. Although a VAST improvement on the practice of cramming passengers into stairwells, the pre board areas only actually serve 2 of the 8 gates. 3 pre board areas for 4 gates in pier B will be an improvement but could still be better.

[LTNman]

A full length taxiway B would do much to alleviate the bottleneck caused at peak times when aircraft are held by ATC because of the queue that builds up when runway 08 is in use.

The runway capacity is set by the taxiway to 08. That will switch to 26 after Christmas as then 26 will have the longest backtrack. When the 26 taxiway is increase the capacity will increase again as the taxiway intersection at both ends will then be the same.

I guess that a tension will eventually emerge between the Council, which is paid per passenger and the operator which benefits from executive jet movements. If fewer of the latter were allowed, runway and parking capacity would be freed up for passenger ops. The capacity constraint would then become the terminal.

The capacity constraint will be and is the terminal. The existing plans were first drawn up in 2012 and published in January 2013. That means it will be 6 years to go from a drawing to a finished terminal. There hasn't been a hint at a further terminal extension and I am not even sure one could be built but if the plans were published today we are looking at 2023.

Not sure where the airport goes when it hits 18 million as 2023 is a long way off and the reality is that it could be a much longer wait than that.

[LTNman]

I did hear from a baggage handler that since the North Apron was remarked it can no longer handle El-Al 777's. Seems to be an issue with the length of the stands rather than the width. The info might not be true so take with a pinch of salt.

[LTNman]

Pier B
On the initial plans it stated that there would be four pre boarding zones , presumably all on the north side of the pier. I think that the south side will be for dropping arrivals off only from the south stands and that departing passengers will be bussed from the north side.
That's only a guess though!

This was the original pier B impression with a recessed south ground floor. Glad to say someone spotted it was a stupid design. The pier being built is flush on this side so lacks the blue projections so looks featureless. Also note that the link building to the pier was meant to be one floor higher but was cost managed with inbound and outbound passengers now passing each other on the same level.

[cj241101]

El Al 777's

Originally Posted by LTNman

I did hear from a baggage handler that since the North Apron was remarked it can no longer handle El-Al 777's. Seems to be an issue with the length of the stands rather than the width. The info might not be true so take with a pinch of salt.

Previously the 777's have always parked on 42R. At a guess they could also park on 42 now the roadway east of that stand has been moved, widening the stand. Either way I cannot believe they is a problem with the depth of the stand - will find out on 4th and 6th July when we have the next 777's.