How do Luton expect to win new business if they behave like this?
Now before anyone shouts at me, I know that when work in progress is scheduled resulting in runway closures, the start of the closure period needs to be applied fairly rigourously otherwise completion of the work will not be achieved on schedule.
Nevertheless I found it difficult to comprehend the thinking behind a conversation I heard last night between a Ryanair aircraft and Luton Air Traffic. I must add at this juncture that Air Traffic made it quite clear that they were acting at the behest of "the airport authority" and that it was not them trying to be unreasonable.
So .. picture the scene. It's 23.55 and a Ryanair 737 is about 30 miles from touchdown and working approach. Luton is in LVP's with a touchdown RVR of 225m. Approach tell the aircraft that if it is not on the ground by 24.00 it will be given instructions to go around. The aircraft is also told that as Luton is in LVP's it must have a minimum of a 10 mile final - fair enough.
The aircraft says that in view of the extended finals it may not land until 00.01 to which it is told once more that it will be told to go around if it can't make 24.00 .. even if it is on short finals.
In the end, there was not a problem as the contractors appeared not to be ready to take possession on the stroke of 00.01 and the aircraft was therefore allowed to land.
Now given that the 24.00 closure is down to the airport's work programme and not due to noise restrictions, is allowing an aircraft 1 or 2 minutes leeway going to cause the work programme to slip that much ... I think not.
Is this attitude with absolutely no flexibility also going to endear Luton to airlines that the airport wish to attract .. particularly Ryanair where the airport wants to see more aircraft based.
Finally, and most importantly, is it appropriate for such situations to be allowed to occur when weather conditions are on minimums thus placing additional stress on crews? to me it seems totally unreasonable.