So Luton's management says "£20 million will be spent on redevelopment and expansion, but not for two or three years or until passenger figures warranted the move".
Unfortunately, if you're competing with the likes of a commercially agressive cross-subsidised Stansted and BAA, you need to provide the infrastructure ahead of the need. This is an absolute concept of modern-day business practice.
For decades, Luton has failed to provide the necessary facilties ahead of demand thereby generating new business in its own right instead of because of slot constraints elsewhere.
The local Council failed totally to capitalise on its asset when it owned and operated the airport and now, it simply creams off over £20M each year with no significant re-investment being made, and laughs all the way to the bank.
TBI's management not only has to compete with BAA and its abuse of dominant position, but it also has to contend with a local Council that bleeds the airport white, offers virtually no active support, panders to a minority of local NIMBYs (= voters), and has hopeless counsellors and officials whose outlook is set firmly in the 1970s - you only have to look at the town itself to see this.
The local roads are a nightmare, the Airport access road is totally inadequate, and the prospect of significant improvements in the short or medium-term are remote.
Contrast this with the recently-completed M11 link into STN (funded partly by BAA and partly by the DfT i.e. the British taxpayer!), central government's active support for development at STN, the buckets of LHR siphoned-off cash available for development and improvements, and the undoubted proactivity of STN's planners and commercial department staff, and it's hardly suprising that LTN remains a poor and struggling relation.
This will never change whilst the playing field's about as level as the Andes...
