Come on Giles, don´t be so damn pessimistic. Do you really expect the airport to invest in huge sums just for the very occasional one-off of a European Soccer final at Wembley! I am sure they will get some traffic but it has always been the case that Stansted and Gatwick get the bulk of the traffic. Stansted is running at just under 50 per cent capacity at the moment but I am not sure how Gatwick is going to cope slot wise but the ATC guys should be able to help us there.
I do not know if you were around in the early 1990s when there were two finals at Wembley and although Luton took some traffic the bulk again went to Stansted at Gatwick. The South stands were used as well as Stands 16 and 17 which were commercial stands and the cargo ramp was used as a bus depot waiting to take passengers to Wembley. Can you imagine that happening now what with elf and safety and security etc. Also there was a lot less business jet traffic in those days and no easyJet and just one Ryanair 737 based so there was a lot more room.
In business you must look after your regular customers i.e. Monarch, easyJet, Wizzair etc. plus I disagree with you about the lack of equipment etc. that is up to the handling agents and not the airport.
Regarding any expansion by the based airlines Monarch have seen an opportunity at Birmingham, EMA and Leeds to step in after the demise of BMI Baby and easyJet pulling out of EMA. Whether it will work only time will tell, but I do think personally having nine aircraft based at Birmingham is a little overkill. Regarding Ryanair they have slightly increased their ´W´ pattern flights this summer; Wizz are increasing the number of weekly departures and the loss of Lodz has nothing to do with Luton - a Wizz decision to pull out of the Polish airport. easyJet sees Gatwick where it can make more money than any other London airport and the airline is increasing the number of business people who use their services so it is only natural that twice a day to Barcelona, Madrid etc from Luton makes sense. The continuing success of the Paris Charles de Gaulle route from Luton has surprised a lot of doubters with passengers using the service for business, interlining and not just for pleasure.
As for sun routes the Midlands and North of England are a different market - for instance it has been noted on another forum that Manchester has 10 daily flights to Palma alone in August (lovely island Majorca but remind me not to go anyway near in August!). So then Giles remember the UK and most of Europe are struggling so you cannot expect large increases in passenger numbers year on year and cheer up!