Buster wrote -
'Good news re Helvetic'
Sorry, I don't agree. Helvetic is reducing fleet from 6 to 4 aircraft, and reducing its number of destinations. That's not good news. It will make profits harder to achieve, and will reduce their market visibility. (But not the visibility of their aircraft
). I hope they aren't another Volare.
Future 737 -
You are quite right about catchment areas - Luton's catchment area (defined by population living within 1 or 2 hours' driving time) is the biggest in the UK after LHR. Luton is also very well located from a surface access point of view.
Unfortunately, I can't see it overtaking STN or LGW in terms of pax throughput. STN currently processing 20m+, that's more than LTN's planning by 2014, and is before infrastructure or efficiency improvements. Also both STN and LGW are BAA airports, who share marketing costs, and can cross-refer airlines wishing to fly into more than one London airport (and there's a lot of those).
But more news:
Aer Arann has announced a twice daily LTN-IOM service from 24 Nov using '50 seat' ATR 42s (is that right?). Although welcome, I suggest this will finish off the BACX 146 operation, so there will be 2 movements but the same (or similar) capacity on the route.