Electing to depart from the 08 intersection reduces the available runway length to around 5,600ft making it one of the shortest take off runs at a major UK airport. Fine if the aircraft has the performance, not so good if the take off run has to be abandoned.
The actual TOR/ASDA is 1685mts and crews using this distance are carrying-out a 'balanced field take-off' on the basis of aircraft weight/outside air temperature/surface wind. It's not illegal, it's not dangerous and crews are not being 'pressurised' - if the aircraft can't meet the required take-off and accelerate-stop distance performance, then they won't take it from this intersection. Southampton for example, with (on runway 20) a TOR of 1650mts and (on Runway 02) a TOR of 1723mts handles 737s and the occasional 757, the former ranging down to the Balearics and (until the service transferred to Bournemouth) Germany, with only the occasional en-route refuelling stop.
The proposals to extend the existing runway at LTN to 2500mts are to accommodate long-haul IT flights non-stop to places such as the US West Coast. However, with aircraft such as the Boeing 787 coming on stream in the next fews years, this need may evapourate as this aircraft (as with similar genre) has a full payload range of around 5000 miles off a +/- 2000mts runway.
The reason that more aircraft can now do it (except perhaps when the temperature is up at +30!) is the much improved power of modern turbofan engines and the fact that most operaters use derated power on take-off anyway, to extend engine life. It's therefore possible to see that perhaps each airframe is now approved for a limited number of max power take-offs per XX000's hours engine life, and Luton is one location where this is being done.
As for Project 2030 - try asking LBC wot's up (they're the culprits...)
