LUTON - 7
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The reason why I see this as a thorny issue is that the vast majority of Luton’s passengers live in and around London. Again the majority of these people work ‘in town’ meaning they would have to use public transport into work meaning the need for a car unless you have family is pretty slim. I know in other parts of the country you need a car to get around but in London, provided you live near the tube, train or a decent bus link you really don’t. Besides it’ll cost me £200 to park a car outside my residence alone!Therefore people are required to use public transport to get to the airport and maybe between Luton airport and National Express they know they have a captive market and to an extent can charge whatever they like.£6.50 to get to Stansted compared to £15 to Luton says it all for me, especially when Stansted is a 25 minute longer journey! It would just appear that they are ripping people off!
Last edited by takingoff; 8th May 2013 at 11:55.
What are the rules on access to the bus stations at Luton and Stansted airports ? Is it genuinely open access (ie a bus operator need only publish and operate to a timetable and a bus stand will be made available) or does the airport owner / operator get to impose access constraints or make the bus company pay rent on the use of the bus parking bay ?
I can make my own guess - if you have knowledge would be interested in replies but not keen on listening to other people's wild guesses
I can make my own guess - if you have knowledge would be interested in replies but not keen on listening to other people's wild guesses
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Dassault/Falcon
Dassault Falcon Service ? an Establishment at London Luton Airport
Was this not at a FBO in Hampshire?
Was this not at a FBO in Hampshire?
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I know nothing about this airline, 1958 at Blackbushe this was taken.
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Bored with the lack of news from Luton,
I think the situation at Luton is a little concerning...
You read the other forums and there seems to be a flourish of new routes and airlines expanding.
I don't think the passenger numbers this summer are going to be too good. Reading that document of the number of seats available, the situation with Monarch looked a little depressing.
None of the airports faithful airlines are expanding, while they grow elsewhere at quite a pace! Would anyone know if the airport actively marketing itself to airlines to operate into Luton and suggesting routes where there is known demand, or is the airport sitting on its hands?
In many respects were not seeing any major cuts, but there are routes which airlines could easily pick up and become a instant success, but no one seems willing to bring them to the airport. Routes that come to mind for me are Waterford, Galway, Cork and Dubrovnik...
For example, FlyBE are going to be operating to Waterford from Birmingham and Manchester this summer. I am sure if Luton was to offer them an incentive they would gladly fly the route, but instead this summer Isle of Man (IOM) and Jersey routes are both getting their frequencies trimmed further! IOM is down to 5x weekly and Jersey is down to 3/4x a week, hard to believe IOM use to be operated twice daily in times gone past.
If Abertis are going to sell the airport operating contract to a new company, I wish they and the council just got in with it and reached an agreement. Then we can bring in a new operator, that wants to actively promote the airport, get on with the expansion and hopefully attract new routes and airlines.
giles - how much space remains at Luton for aircraft to be based overnight, and can the terminal in its present state cope with any more passengers during the early morning rush ? Furthermore, when will the builders have substantially finished all the expansion works ?
The airport does not just need operators basing aircraft overnight. What they need are flights filling the rest of the day. There is plenty of capacity during the rest of the day for someone to come in, whether they be existing operators doing 'W' pattens or non based operators, such as Flybe doing routes such as Galway.
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EasyJet only seems to have eyes for Gatwick, Southend, Manchester and Edinburgh it would seem nowadays where most other bases are either stagnating or declining. Luton is not alone where EasyJet is concerned. I'm actually more concerned with the decreasing number of EasyJet services at airports such as Stansted and Liverpool (and maybe Luton this winter unless the timetable is sorted out from the complete mess it's in) just because they are brining more aircraft and routes to Southend, Gatwick and Manchester. I struggle to find why they can't expand in sympathy with existing frequencies and routes from neighboring airports, rather than just shift planes from one place to another and duplicating more routes. Perhaps if/when they get a big aircraft order, they may be more hope for major expansion from airports such as Luton.
Monarch is perhaps most concerning for me in Luton's case. Whilst I don't know if it's been pointed out, the loss of the Munich route in the summer has been replaced by other flights (I know there's now a flight to Faro replacing to Monday service, but unsure about other days of the week). Longer routes such as Sharm El Sheikh, Dalaman, Larnaca etc. utilise aircraft for longer periods whilst shorter routes to Spain and the Balearics have not been increasing in frequency. This along with the W pattern in Gibraltar may suggest that aircraft are not as able to fly so many weekly rotations as in recent years, ultimately reducing passenger numbers. The biggest concern for Luton is losing aircraft to new/emerging bases such as Leeds, East Midlands and Birmingham not that we've seen any of that yet though as I understand.
Ryanair are very samey year after year at Luton. Capacity remains very stagnant and routes are very odd choices in my view, just a scramble of odds and sods they don't have at Stansted and routes that they have served for years and years. eg. They only serve Girona, Reus and Murcia in Spain, perhaps Ryanair's three oldest Spanish destinations. Every other UK Ryanair base now serves Alicante, Malaga, Palma etc. Perhaps the most concerning is that Luton seems to have been left behind. It looks more like the typical Ryanair base 10 years ago. It hasn't really grown or modernised into today's typical Ryanair base. I don't really expect any major growth after so many years of the same sort of stuff, having said that I don't expect any decline really either. As far as I know, they are slightly up this summer but really not much with the same old routes and 4 a/c.
No worries really with Thomson, they will in fact have one extra roation a week next summer along with the slightest bit more at Stansted (since a 4th rotation on Mondays in now May-Oct not only Jul-Aug) along with growth at Gatwick and Southend. Hats off to Thomson, they are clearly doing well since they seem to be able to increase at all London airports year on year!!!
Wizz Air is the interesting one. At one time, any new route that Wizz added to it's network served Luton nearly straight away. More recent additions such as Tulza in Bosnia, Szczecin in Poland or Craiova in Romania still exclude Luton and instead fly to other areas of Northern and Central Europe. We've heard rumours of a new service to Kosice, Slovakia, yet that still hasn't been confirmed. Could Wizz finally also start stagnating at Luton. The Lodz route has also been axed. They seem to have much more focus now on their home market, Budapest, since Malev went bust. Have they ran out of early morning slots and instead looking at other times of the day, are looking at different markets? The threat is because Wizz are not a based carrier at Luton, they can play around with routes and capcity much more easily.
Luton is very fortunate though to have 5 strong carriers, 3 of which have their HQ at Luton. Whilst it now virtually has nothing else (even FlyBe seem to have nothing in the winter and nothing from Blue Air yet), I can't see Luton losing too much capacity but I do think it will always be these 5 carriers serving nearly all of Luton's traffic. Routes lost from carriers like Aer Lingus Regional or even going back to Transavia or Sky Europe have not been replaced. Overall, "stagnation" is perhaps the best way to describe Luton at the moment!
Monarch is perhaps most concerning for me in Luton's case. Whilst I don't know if it's been pointed out, the loss of the Munich route in the summer has been replaced by other flights (I know there's now a flight to Faro replacing to Monday service, but unsure about other days of the week). Longer routes such as Sharm El Sheikh, Dalaman, Larnaca etc. utilise aircraft for longer periods whilst shorter routes to Spain and the Balearics have not been increasing in frequency. This along with the W pattern in Gibraltar may suggest that aircraft are not as able to fly so many weekly rotations as in recent years, ultimately reducing passenger numbers. The biggest concern for Luton is losing aircraft to new/emerging bases such as Leeds, East Midlands and Birmingham not that we've seen any of that yet though as I understand.
Ryanair are very samey year after year at Luton. Capacity remains very stagnant and routes are very odd choices in my view, just a scramble of odds and sods they don't have at Stansted and routes that they have served for years and years. eg. They only serve Girona, Reus and Murcia in Spain, perhaps Ryanair's three oldest Spanish destinations. Every other UK Ryanair base now serves Alicante, Malaga, Palma etc. Perhaps the most concerning is that Luton seems to have been left behind. It looks more like the typical Ryanair base 10 years ago. It hasn't really grown or modernised into today's typical Ryanair base. I don't really expect any major growth after so many years of the same sort of stuff, having said that I don't expect any decline really either. As far as I know, they are slightly up this summer but really not much with the same old routes and 4 a/c.
No worries really with Thomson, they will in fact have one extra roation a week next summer along with the slightest bit more at Stansted (since a 4th rotation on Mondays in now May-Oct not only Jul-Aug) along with growth at Gatwick and Southend. Hats off to Thomson, they are clearly doing well since they seem to be able to increase at all London airports year on year!!!
Wizz Air is the interesting one. At one time, any new route that Wizz added to it's network served Luton nearly straight away. More recent additions such as Tulza in Bosnia, Szczecin in Poland or Craiova in Romania still exclude Luton and instead fly to other areas of Northern and Central Europe. We've heard rumours of a new service to Kosice, Slovakia, yet that still hasn't been confirmed. Could Wizz finally also start stagnating at Luton. The Lodz route has also been axed. They seem to have much more focus now on their home market, Budapest, since Malev went bust. Have they ran out of early morning slots and instead looking at other times of the day, are looking at different markets? The threat is because Wizz are not a based carrier at Luton, they can play around with routes and capcity much more easily.
Luton is very fortunate though to have 5 strong carriers, 3 of which have their HQ at Luton. Whilst it now virtually has nothing else (even FlyBe seem to have nothing in the winter and nothing from Blue Air yet), I can't see Luton losing too much capacity but I do think it will always be these 5 carriers serving nearly all of Luton's traffic. Routes lost from carriers like Aer Lingus Regional or even going back to Transavia or Sky Europe have not been replaced. Overall, "stagnation" is perhaps the best way to describe Luton at the moment!
giles - how much space remains at Luton for aircraft to be based overnight, and can the terminal in its present state cope with any more passengers during the early morning rush ? Furthermore, when will the builders have substantially finished all the expansion works ?
The building work hasn't even started because the planning application STILL hasn't gone in yet. Its all gone very quiet on that front; the operators are trying to terminate their lease. Once the works are done in the long term, the airport will be far far better for passengers. Security and immigration capacity will be doubled, there will be approx 6-8 new gates and possibly another 15 stands able to hold B737/A320 aircraft.
I think part of the problem is the airport's fees. Thomson and Monarch are probably basing/parking up aircraft in other locations because its too expensive to leave it on the apron for "long" periods of time. Understandable through supply and demand.
However, El Al seem to be very happy with their current arrangements at Luton. They've recently been operating B772s during Easter and expanding their services weekly.
Last edited by Dannyboy39; 12th May 2013 at 09:52.
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I agree, I think the situation with Monarch is quite concerning...
It is not just a case they have moved frequencies away from LTN, they also are reducing capacity this summer with more of the flights operated by A320 as opposed to A321.
It just goes to show what faith Monarch have in EMA, the base is being operated by two A321's, and more A321's have gone to Birmingham too!
Charter traffic at Luton has literally collapsed over the years and I think this is where the airport could focus a lot of attention... I appreciate the whole travel industry has been consolidated in recent years, but it is embarrassing the airport has virtually no presence with Thomas Cook any more, other than Thomson selling them a few dozen seats on their aircraft. Thomas Cook has a presence at virtually every other UK major airport and again I quote EMA where two A321's are based this summer and also Thomson also has a larger presence there, with I think four aircraft this summer.
The airport needs to take a step back and maybe look at other regional airports (instead of London Airports) and see how they are attracting traffic.
Especially when you consider the airports size and the facilities they have, which is far more on par with the likes of Bristol or East Midlands, than the other London airports which have multi billion pound terminals and room to expand.
If the airports fees are expensive compared to other UK airports, then shame on LLAOL! The airport needs to take a reality check, pretty damn quick before they start hemorrhaging traffic, like what has happened at Stansted. It needs to face facts that it is not an airport with greatest of facilities, it is not going to attract high yielding traffic and can only attract certain traffic/market types.
If the likes of Wizz Air, Ryanair or easyJet are reaching the end of a set price contract for using the airport and they are then expected to pay the going rates, which if they are higher than other UK airport, the management might be in for a shock from these airlines!
Also the airports approach to growth, is shocking! The airport first exceeded the nine million passenger number mark back in 2005 and here we are eight years later, with still no plans submitted for growth for the airport and just lots of talk and pretty computer images.
The terminal can only comfortably handle ten million, but if these plans had been in place back then for this growth, the airport could be a different picture today. Where airlines would have been happy to move to or expand at Luton, knowing the facilities to cope with demand are in place or being developed.
I don't think we will see any growth from easyJet until this has happened, they have been vocal in the past about the airports current facilities and transport links, but this seems to have fallen on deaf ears at the airport
It is not just a case they have moved frequencies away from LTN, they also are reducing capacity this summer with more of the flights operated by A320 as opposed to A321.
It just goes to show what faith Monarch have in EMA, the base is being operated by two A321's, and more A321's have gone to Birmingham too!
Charter traffic at Luton has literally collapsed over the years and I think this is where the airport could focus a lot of attention... I appreciate the whole travel industry has been consolidated in recent years, but it is embarrassing the airport has virtually no presence with Thomas Cook any more, other than Thomson selling them a few dozen seats on their aircraft. Thomas Cook has a presence at virtually every other UK major airport and again I quote EMA where two A321's are based this summer and also Thomson also has a larger presence there, with I think four aircraft this summer.
The airport needs to take a step back and maybe look at other regional airports (instead of London Airports) and see how they are attracting traffic.
Especially when you consider the airports size and the facilities they have, which is far more on par with the likes of Bristol or East Midlands, than the other London airports which have multi billion pound terminals and room to expand.
I think part of the problem is the airport's fees.
If the likes of Wizz Air, Ryanair or easyJet are reaching the end of a set price contract for using the airport and they are then expected to pay the going rates, which if they are higher than other UK airport, the management might be in for a shock from these airlines!
Also the airports approach to growth, is shocking! The airport first exceeded the nine million passenger number mark back in 2005 and here we are eight years later, with still no plans submitted for growth for the airport and just lots of talk and pretty computer images.
The terminal can only comfortably handle ten million, but if these plans had been in place back then for this growth, the airport could be a different picture today. Where airlines would have been happy to move to or expand at Luton, knowing the facilities to cope with demand are in place or being developed.
I don't think we will see any growth from easyJet until this has happened, they have been vocal in the past about the airports current facilities and transport links, but this seems to have fallen on deaf ears at the airport
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The difference is that East Midlands has no EasyJet at all now, far more embarrasing in a way than Luton having no Thomas Cook. Whilst Ryanair has grown to an impressive size at East Midlands, much of the traffic is very seasonal where Jet2 for instance has added an aircraft every summer since 2010 (it will have 5 in 2014) but barely operates the equivelent of 1 aircraft in the winter.
I don't think Luton will want to go down that route of seasonality so best to think as a London airport serving Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Warsaw etc. with the likes of EasyJet and Wizz Air rather than a regional airport focusing mainly in seasonal bucket and spade flights with amuch emptier terminal in the winter.
There is exceptional demand in the East Midlands for package holidays to Palma, Tenerife, Corfu etc. The fact that East Midlands Airport serves a regional area rather than focusing on a specific city has made it difficult for it to attract anything but flights to the sun for the local area (I think that's the main reason why EasyJet left, they are focusing more now on business travel and they like their big cities). There's not a great deal of business travellers at East Midlands, only really with FlyBe and the Ryanair Dublin route, Luton has more potential for that so I think that's the only reason why there is less chartered traffic. Also remember TCX, TOM and ZB have big Gatwick bases and TCX and TOM both at Stansted (both of which use Stansted as a dissapointingly small base.)
I don't think Luton will want to go down that route of seasonality so best to think as a London airport serving Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Warsaw etc. with the likes of EasyJet and Wizz Air rather than a regional airport focusing mainly in seasonal bucket and spade flights with amuch emptier terminal in the winter.
There is exceptional demand in the East Midlands for package holidays to Palma, Tenerife, Corfu etc. The fact that East Midlands Airport serves a regional area rather than focusing on a specific city has made it difficult for it to attract anything but flights to the sun for the local area (I think that's the main reason why EasyJet left, they are focusing more now on business travel and they like their big cities). There's not a great deal of business travellers at East Midlands, only really with FlyBe and the Ryanair Dublin route, Luton has more potential for that so I think that's the only reason why there is less chartered traffic. Also remember TCX, TOM and ZB have big Gatwick bases and TCX and TOM both at Stansted (both of which use Stansted as a dissapointingly small base.)
Thomson and Monarch can't really compete in terms of price and frequency at Luton against easyJet on the same routes.
Up at the Northern bases of EMA, MAN and LBA, there is no meaningful easyJet competition, whereas more than half of the commercial movements at Luton are orange buses.
Up at the Northern bases of EMA, MAN and LBA, there is no meaningful easyJet competition, whereas more than half of the commercial movements at Luton are orange buses.
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Flybe maybe considering the sale of their Gatwick slots, would they move to Luton or City?
According to the Eastern Daily Press, Stansted and Gatwick have been working with all the interested parties involved with the Champions League Final being held at Wembley and are now the two designated airports for the German fans to use!
According to the Eastern Daily Press, Stansted and Gatwick have been working with all the interested parties involved with the Champions League Final being held at Wembley and are now the two designated airports for the German fans to use!
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Champions League Traffic
According to the Eastern Daily Press, Stansted and Gatwick have been working with all the interested parties involved with the Champions League Final being held at Wembley and are now the two designated airports for the German fans to use!
Probably a simple case that one airport is to deal with Dortmund traffic and the other Munich...
Another joke on the airports part that they have no space or facilities to handle aircraft parked up for most of the day, or the shear number of passengers while London's other airports can cope with their normal traffic as well as the football traffic!
Luton is meant to be least congested of the London airports, but that is only true if the facilities were in place, where it is actually probably the most restricted! It might have the runway availability, but nothing else...
Instead the management company and council just cream off of the profits, making do with facilities and infrastructure that were implemented nearly a decade ago and make do with them. While other airports far busier that have evolved over recent years, cope with additional ad-hoc demand.
I get so frustrated with these opportunities just going by, seeing it get mis-managed and the airport isn't half the airport it could be!
Last edited by gilesdavies; 12th May 2013 at 20:00.
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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!
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!