I have an interest in airport figures.
With the deepest respect, the management most certainly do aspire to being the UK’s 5ft busiest airport: ‘London Luton Airport is the UK's 5th largest passenger airport’, those words are from their own website!
Furthermore, new destinations will shortly be inaugurated from Luton this year in addition to increases on current routes.
In terms of average passengers per flight for the rolling twelve months, Edinburgh handled 97, Glasgow 103 against Luton’s 137 which makes Luton far more efficient in terms of passenger volume v aircraft movement.
With most of Heathrow’s movements being by wide body aircraft, it does beg the question why the average passenger load is only 197? Could this be a reflection of some recently reported airline only achieving 40% payloads on it’s domestic routes?
Stansted has handled an average of 135, Gatwick 146, Southend 107, London City 50 passengers and Birmingham 108.