...by doing nothing the airport would loose business to other airports
Stansted excepted (for obvious reasons) the likes of Biggin Hill, Farnborough, Northolt and Southend cannot offer the same 24/7, 365/year all-weather (i.e. Category 3b) facilities that Luton can.
The one thing that corporate flights require is the flexibility to arrive and depart to suit business meetings, etc., which frequently overrun or are changed at relatively short notice. For example, being unable to depart after XXX because the airport will be closed and is not permitted to open because of planning restrictions doesn't offer the flexibility required by the 'captains of industry' who charter these aircraft.
Airports such as Luton (and Stansted) do.
As far as the comments made by the LLAO 'Airport Manager' he/she is merely stating a fact that has been apprent for several months.
The idiots in LBC (councillors and their advisors/officials) clearly believed that ACDL/LLAO would blink first. Not for the first time in the history of local government (and not simply at Luton's Town Hall) they completely misjudged the situation and so have in effect, begun what could ultimately prove to be a slow decline for LTN.
LBC ought now to begin planning what it's going to do in about six years time when ACDL walks away causing the 'unearned income' generated by this ill-conceived Concession experiment to dry up and the Airport in effect, once again becomes a cost on the council's budget sheet.
The town's coucil tax payers may come to regret the day that LBC's politically-motivated decision not to sell LTN outright was taken...
