I have been reading the last airport master plan which was published in 2012 and is the bases for the existing redevelopment.
In our previous draft masterplan document, we proposed to expand the Airport to a capacity of 15-16mppa and we felt at the time that this represented a maximum figure for airport capacity within the existing site. However, following an extension to our concession with LLAL, a review of feedback received during both our and LLAL’s consultation exercises, a review of our own proposals and those of LLAL, and a process of detailed modelling, environmental assessment and design iteration we are confident that an 18 mppa capacity airport can be achieved within the existing Airport boundary
Clearly they need to speak to
Lee Baker Street who thinks differently
So the airport does state that by a bit of jiggery-pokery they were able to squeeze another 2 million passengers through the airport than first thought possable.
The Airport is built on 245 hectares of land. The two airports closest in passenger throughput to Luton, Birmingham and Edinburgh, have 330 and 367 hectares respectively.
The number of passengers that can be accommodated by this increase in capacity is up to 18 mppa, compared with the 2011 level of 9.6 mppa.
This is an interesting statement as in 2011 the airport had a capacity of 9.6 million passengers then by doing nothing it became 12 million passengers.
The prediction in 2012 for passenger numbers for this year was 12.1 million while the actual number of 15 million was not meant to have happened until 2023.
This might explain why the airport was somewhat relaxed in starting the redevelopment.