The bottom line is that someone at servisair gave the wrong information to the tower that there was a tow bar available. If the correct info had been given then the aircraft would have parked nose out, refuelled and would have been gone within an hour. The question still remains as to why the passengers were kept on board for 3 hours when they could have been disembarked. Servisair’s failure to monitor and answer their radio certainly didn’t help but was there another factor at play here like the airport not wanting 350 passengers milling around in arrivals while coaches were organized and sent to the airport to pick up the passengers.
I can remember being diverted to Manchester on a BA 747 years ago and spent 3 hours sitting on a remote stand before we were allowed to disembark so it is not only Luton where problems can occur.