email
Dear xxxx
Thank your for your e mail which has been forwarded to me by the London Luton Airport Consultative Committee.
Firstly please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.
We take the issue of access to the airport very seriously indeed and have conducted an exhaustive review in order to introduce a new access plan to manage traffic flow and encourage the use of public transport.
We introduced a series of measures that form the basis of this plan on Wednesday, July 1st 2009. The plan includes the following options for vehicles driving to the airport:
• Free drop off / free pick up and 60 minutes free parking in Mid Term Car Park with a free 2 minute bus transfer to the terminal every 10 minutes
• 60 minutes free parking for Blue badge holders in short term car park
• Pick up, drop off or park in the short term car park for £2.50 for up to 15 minutes and £4.50 for up to 30 minutes
• A £1.00 charge to use the priority set down area for 10 minutes for drop off although the vehicle cannot be left unattended. This is designed to encourage the use of alternative drop off in the mid term car park
• Investment in traffic light equipment to control traffic flow on the roundabout in front of the terminal building.
At the busiest times of day almost 1500 vehicles drive up to the terminal building in a 2 hour period. If we can reduce this number by 150 vehicles by offering an alternative free drop off and 60 minutes free parking in the mid term car park, congestion will be reduced by 10%.
Charges for the ‘terminal set down area’ have been primarily set in order to encourage use of the free mid term car parking in order to reduce congestion.
LondonLutonAirport suffers from congestion for similar reasons to the rest of the South East as well as an increase in passenger numbers from 7 million in 2002 to 10 million in 2008. We have implemented this access plan to deal with this problem and it will take time for passengers to become accustomed to the new system.
We are genuinely seeing an improvement in the traffic flow and congestion which on the whole is limited to between 05.30 and 07.00 in the morning, is reducing. Take up of the free car parking option is averaging between 600 and 800 cars a day and we will continue to promote this service.
I am very sorry you are unhappy with arrangements at the airport and hope my email goes some way to explaining why new measures have been introduced. If you would like to discuss the matter with someone at the airport, xxxxx our Marketing Manager will be happy go through our plans in more detail and can be contact on xxxxx xxxxx
Yours sincerely
xxxxxx
Information & Customer Services
reply
Dear Ms xxxxxx
Thank you for your detailed email but I do just want to raise a couple of points. You mention that if 150 cars use the midterm car park that traffic flows into the central area could be reduced by 10%. Lets remember that those traffic lights reduce the traffic flow by 50%, as half the time they are set to let cars out of the drop off area. By reversing the traffic flow into the drop off area the central area could handle 100% more traffic, as the traffic lights would not be needed.
Also I read in the papers that Luton is handling less passengers this year so you already have your 10% reduction and still it is chaos.
The airport authority needs to remember that passengers have a choice of airports and Luton is not passenger friendly. My family have increased your passenger movements by 16 passengers in the last 3 months as Luton is on our door step but if I lived just a few more miles away I would not use Luton. Getting to the airport in the morning is a total nightmare so we have to leave an extra 45 minutes early to make what should be a 10 minute journey.
Getting back into Luton is no better, while I understand that the airport has no control over staffing levels of the UK border agency it took 45 minutes yesterday to clear customers and this was at 11.30 in the morning when I thought it was a quite time of day. After collecting luggage we did indeed use the shuttle bus to get the mid term car park, as this was where our lift was waiting. I have to say I hated every second of having to wait 10 minutes for a bus only to be taken to a car park that hasn't been resurfaced in 20 years. The bus was not fit for purpose, as it was too small and was over crowded, also I could not place our cases into the luggage holders as they were too far off the ground.
Regards