Originally Posted by
pabely
Have you got comparative costs of how much the old busses cost? Then utilisation pax per day?
Finally the customer experience on making Luton a more desirable airport and spending at the airport because you don't have to queue in the rain for a horrible journey to the airport and say never again?
It was well documented that TUI lost interest in Luton because of negative feedback outside their control.
Putting the Car Park fire aside, the whole Airport experience was shaping up well.
Focusing on the cost to LRT and the Council, the shuttle buses had a cost of £0, as it was funded by Thameslink. By comparison the Dart has a cost of £360m.
The Dart is far more desirable but has failed to add a single passenger as shuttle buses coped in 2019 when the airport operated at 18m passengers that year. In 2023 the airport handled 16.5m passengers despite the Dart.
Talking of queuing, it was taking close to an hour to get from the pick up zone to the A505 due to the continuing closure of New Airport Way in the direction of the M1. Just getting out of the car park was taking around 40 minutes, as cars had to keep merging into a single exit lane within the car park, which then took them around the car park boundary before a very slow drive down Old Airport Way. I did take some photos but the hosting company I use for publishing no longer seems to support forums.