Throughout 2005, Luton and Glasgow are likely to be jockying for the 7th position in terms of annual passenger throughput, whilst Edinburgh will probably settle into 6th place behind Birmingham, then Stansted, Manchester, Gatwick all following Heathrow.
Luton is on target to handle a rolling annual total of 10m passengers by the end of 2005 with additional Ryanair schedules expected to be announced in the late Spring, all starting in September/October using additional based aircraft.
Annual movements are likely to breach 100,000 of which 99% are airline and corporate aircraft operations. Not sure if Luton's annual passenger figures include those carried on corporate aircraft.
Two additional Boeing 737-800s shortly to be based at Stansted have created a major logistical problem for BAA over peak-time stand availability which is having a knock-on effect on the plans of long-haul lo-co 'Skylink' which was looking to bring x 4 Boeing 767-300s into Stansted between 0530 and 0700 daily ex. the US East Coast.
Consequently, Skylink is rumoured to also be looking at Luton and would even take the occasional 'hit' by refuelling in Bangor if due to weather conditions & load, aircraft were sometimes unable to fly non-stop because of Luton's shorter runway.
However, Luton is in a similar predicament to Stansted and the former is desperately looking for additional areas on which to construct more aprons.
The irony for Luton is that for the first time arguably in 30 years, Luton's new airport operator has the vision, will and the finance to rapidly expand the infrastructure and attract significant new business, but any new-build facilities that would take annual passengers over 10m requires planning permission from the local council.
This - if refused because of opposition from the local NIMBYs and NOPEs - might act as an artificial constraint on Luton's continued growth beyond 10m annual passengers.
