I find Abertis' plans for the airport a little disappointing and lacking some vision... It seems they are content to continue to let Luton to being the Cinderella airport of London.
BUT, to be fair to them, for the forseeable future the Low Cost Carriers are probably going to continue to be the primary driver for growth at the airport. This particular market, wants to see value for money, and by building an airport that is going to cost millions to fund and means increasing fees will only drive them away.
We need to be realistic, even though the airport has attracted the likes of EL AL and Adria in the last few months and years. The "traditional full fare" airlines really do not have any desire to fly from Luton, they want to fly from Heathrow and Gatwick, where they can make more money on their tickets, hence why easyJet has such an infatuation with LGW!
Stansted boasts the fancy terminal, the air bridges, on-site railway station, longer runway, infastructure, etc, etc, and they can't even pull in these carriers! They even managed to loose their only long haul route to Kuala Lumpa with Air Asia X to Gatwick, with the airline stating they could earn more on flights from their. (I would however point out, the route was dropped altogether shortly after they moved it to LGW, because of the increases in APD.)
I don't see everyones infatuation with the airport having a longer runway... Why is this needed? I don't see airlines clambering to operate larger aircraft or long haul routes from the airport!
Even the airports resident airlines like Monarch and Thomson, don't seem to have have a desire to operate long haul routes.
Bristol airport only has a 6000ft runway and Thomson manages to operate 767 flights to Florida from their. Exeter airport has a similar length runway and manages to handle flights to Toronto with Air Transat A310's.
London and UK's most popular longer routes are to the likes of New York and Dubai, a 757/767/A330 could easily use the existing runway, with minimal restrictions. There is no such airline trying to operate such routes from the airport, and they wouldn't consider operating larger aircraft until the route proved successful with the above aircraft types.
Airports like Birmingham do at least have an argument for a runway extension, which they are currently doing. As they have a market for long haul flights, as they operate twice daily flights with 777-300ER's to Dubai with Emirates, also 777's with PIA to Pakistan and United Airlines 757's to Newark. Along with your chartered traffic across the pond.
Even if the Luton can attract larger aircraft to the airport with a longer runway. The number of flights will be in single digits, like a weekly cargo flight with a 747, and this will barely pay for the extension!
I think us LTN fans, should try and remain grounded, and remember the kind of markets that the airport currently serves, and be realistic in what it can achieve going forward.