My pennies thought if it is worth anything, is that future growth will come to Luton, but more in the longer term and is going to be at a far slow level that we have seen in previous year...
Going by all the growth that is taking place at Gatwick and that the airline has all the FlyBE slots it recently purchased to fill, this is probably going to hinder growth from the other London airports for the next year or so, as new aircraft delivered will be required to fill these.
A lot of the recent growth from Gatwick has been on business routes, and we have not seen this at Luton. So Im getting the impression that easyJet, might be taking Luton back to its grass routes and focus the base on primarily holiday/city break destinations. With a sprinkling of traditional routes that are used by both tourist and business travellers like Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Zurich and Milan.
While also offering the niche routes like Tel Aviv, which is specifically flown from Luton to capture the huge Jewish market of North London.
There was concern when easyJet announced they will grow Stansted this might come at Luton's expense... But so far the Summer 2014 schedule that has been released, has alleviated these concerns and is pretty much the same schedule as present. The main changes were, the loss of Istanbul, the new Venice route, Reykjavik increasing to six times weekly, Minorca being reduced to once weekly and Budapest going to four times weekly. There maybe room for a twice weekly route to be announced to summer sun destination.
I don't think too much needs to read into the loss of Istanbul, this route is also being dropped from Basel, which was the only other base they flew to Istanbul from. It is probably a case the likes of Turkish Airlines and Pegasus have squeezed the airline out of the market, as they have grown.
The airline is supportive of expansion for Luton, but has been vocal and made it clear ground transportation and general infrastructure within the airport terminal needs to be improved.
When the announcement of Luton being sold to AENA last month, the airline gave quite a muted response:
“As London Luton Airport's largest airline, easyJet bases a fleet of 15 aircraft on site serving 38 destinations across Europe, Northern Africa the Middle East and Iceland carrying almost 5m passengers each year on our easy and affordable flights.
"We look forward to working with AENA and AXA to deliver enhancements to London Luton Airport which will result in sustainable growth, long term development and an improved customer experience which will help the airport to reach its full potential."
There is definately some hopes in there for possible future growth!
There is lot of talk that Luton is currently full and no room on the apron to base further aircraft, but there is atleast a couple of spare stands if easyJet did want to grow immediately, also if the airline wanted to, they could operate flights into the airport from other bases. Outside of the morning rush, there is plenty of room for growth.
While Luton is classified as a London airport, it also serves a huge area outside of London, with it being the nearest/local airport for people as far away as Northamptonshire and the southern section of M1 corridor. Also for easyJet, once you go passed Luton on the M1 heading north, they don't have another base until you hit Manchester/Liverpool. So I'd imagine you also attract some traffic from the Midlands area too.