EZY Luton Expansion
 

From EZY web page:

easyJet announces major expansion at Luton.

easyJet, Europe's leading low-cost airline, today announced significant growth from its base at London Luton Airport. The airline will be adding three more aircraft to the existing 13, representing a growth of 25% by the end of the winter.

In addition to Dortmund, Krakow and Warsaw announced last week, easyJet will be launching at least three more new routes to its ever growing network. Details of the new destinations will be released within the next few weeks, and will reflect the airline's ongoing strategy to link the most attractive and popular destination airports.

easyJet currently offers a choice of 22 routes from London Luton to a variety of attractive destinations throughout Europe. Over five million passengers have flown from the Luton base in the last 12 months, and the airline intends to increase this figure to over six million within the next year.

Ray Webster easyJet Chief Executive commented:

"Luton was easyJet's first base and has always proved to be a successful and profitable market. Today's announcement reflects our commitment to London, and the Herts, Beds and Bucks regions. We intend to continue with our planned growth and envisage further successful development from Luton" ;)

If it's a 'joining of the dots' for the other three routes, Prague & Rome must be leading contenders plus one other. Blimey, LTN could be looking at 9m+ pax in 2005, especially if Wizz keep going, plus two other airlines in the frame.

So when will LTN go Airbus? Please don´t tell me they´re gonna fly these routes with those old ex-Go -300´s!:hmm:

Not 1, not even 2, but 3 additional aircraft to be based!

6 million easy passengers next year!
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Think this is good news, just wait for tomorrows news:ok: Just hope that TBI have enough stands.

LTNMan

Are we talking " exotic routes " here or something else?

Excellent news ... maybe TBI will now spend some of the £20M they have allegedly got earmarked to expand facilities at Luton.

LTNman - you are right, new stands are urgently required .. even if the two FBO's then fill them with even more Biz jets!!!!!

LTNman, I hope the news is as we expect it to be? More new stands may well be needed!

LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) - French construction and management firm Vinci SGEF.PA sold its remaining 10.1 percent stake in British airports company TBI TBI.L for more than 36 million pounds ($66.3 million), dealers said on Wednesday.

Brokerage Evolution Beeson Gregory sold 56.5 million TBI shares at 64 1/2 pence to institutions and others, dealers said, adding that some had been bought by investment firms Laxey Partners and J.O. Hambro.

Vinci no longer has a stake in TBI, dealers said. The French firm was not immediately available to comment. TBI was also unavailable for comment.

Shares in TBI -- the owner of Luton airport, north of London -- were up 4.7 percent at 66-1/4 pence by 1344 GMT on heavy trading volume of 122 million shares. Dealers said the shares were lifted after Vinci\'s remaining stake was sold, as the expectation of a sale had been hanging over the shares for some time.

"There\'s been a lot of speculation in recent weeks that Vinci would sell the rest, so now there\'s going to be quite a lot of interest in the stock," said one trader.

Vinci pulled out of a takeover bid for TBI in September 2001 after the attacks that month in the United States plunged the aviation industry worldwide into a recession.

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FR announcement
 

LTNMan

Easy obviously got word of tomorrow's announcement and decided to upstage it by announcing something new themselves. Whats the betting that their 3 new routes include some of the 3 new routes FR will announce tomorrow

So pax per annum:

easy jet 6,000,000
Wizz 1,000,000
New airline 1,750,000 (Rumoured here to be RYR ?)

Then add, Britannia, Monarch, Helios, Fisrt Choice etc...!
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Doug The Head,

I think you'll find most of the old -300's will be disappearing quite quickly, leaving the 'new' -300s (ordered direct from Boeing) and the -700s.

Suspect LTN unlikely as a 319 base as there are a lot of other more obvious candidate bases out there which will come first, bearing in mind LTN crews are all -700 and -300 rated, and LTN maintenance is set up for 737's.

Yeah, let´s hope they get rid of those older -300´s as they really are a poor show for both crew and pax.

I´m affraid you´re right about the Bus coming to LTN, although there are some persistent rumours floating around in LTN and STN.

Buster, where did you get that new airline 1,75 million pax number from?

If the press release rumour is correct, based upon 85% loads it is roughly 1.75m, but what I am not too sure of is if the base will be an additional 4 aircraft, or 4 in total? 1.75m could be a little bit less then.

Anyway, we have been down this road before, Olney, Buster, LTNman, powerjet and others here will believe it when it is official, hopefully this time it will be?
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FR in big Stansted fallout
 

If the rumour is true it might have something to do with this.

BAA will take court action against discount airline Ryanair over £1m the airport operator says it is owed.
BAA announced it would issue a High Court writ against the company, after a 1600BST Wednesday deadline was not met.

BAA says it is owed the money for landing fees at Stansted Airport. Ryanair said it would issue its own proceedings against BAA.

Ryanair, as with other airlines, receives a discount on BAA fees during the expansion of Stansted.

A spokesman for BAA told BBC News Online the carrier will still be able to operate out of the airport, but it will no longer receive those discounts.

The Irish airline's charges stand to nearly double as a result.

Ryanair immediately hit back at BAA "We are issuing our own proceedings against BAA for over-charging on fuel levies at Stansted over a 12-year period," a Ryanair spokesman said.

"As BAA is already aware, our agreement on charges is very specific and expires in 2007."

FR set to choose LTN as BAA issue writ
 

Looks like MOL has got the a**e hole with BAA and will be expanding out of LTN from now on. Standby for a big announcement.

This from the BBC

BAA will take court action against discount airline Ryanair over £1m the airport operator says it is owed.
BAA announced it would issue a High Court writ against the company, after a 1600BST Wednesday deadline was not met.

BAA says it is owed the money for landing fees at Stansted Airport. Ryanair said it would issue its own proceedings against BAA.

Ryanair, as with other airlines, receives a discount on BAA fees during the expansion of Stansted.

A spokesman for BAA told BBC News Online the carrier will still be able to operate out of the airport, but it will no longer receive those discounts.

The Irish airline's charges stand to nearly double as a result.

Ryanair immediately hit back at BAA. "We are issuing our own proceedings against BAA for over-charging on fuel levies at Stansted over a 12-year period," a Ryanair spokesman said.

"As BAA is already aware, our agreement on charges is very specific and expires in 2007."

BLIMEY! MOL starting a war against the BAA who have supported him and his airline!............................

BAA set to fight Ryanair with writ and fee rise
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent


BAA, the airport operator, will today intensify its long battle with Ryanair by doubling the low-cost airline’s landing charges and starting legal action over allegedly unpaid airport fees.
BAA will issue a High Court writ against Ryanair, accusing the airline of failing to pay £1 million of airport charges incurred at Stansted.

BAA has also cancelled the discount Ryanair receives on airport charges and from today will charge the airline almost double the previous rate per passenger. The increase would cost Ryanair more than £25 million a year.

Ryanair will retaliate with counter-proceedings against BAA and by announcing a big expansion at Luton, owned by BAA’s closest rival, TBI.

The relationship between Ryanair and BAA had already been soured by calls from Michael O’Leary, the airline’s chief executive, for BAA to be broken up. He has accused BAA of exploiting its stranglehold on London through its ownership of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

Mr O’Leary has also claimed that BAA is “pissing away” billions of pounds of customers’ money on its expansion plans for Stansted. Ryanair says a new runway and terminal could be built there for as little as £200 million, a tenth of the £2 billion that BAA is planning to spend.

The latest dispute involves a bill for airport fees that BAA issued several months ago.

BAA said it would issue a writ today because Ryanair failed to meet a final deadline of 4pm yesterday for the bill to be settled. BAA says Ryanair has withheld the money because it claims BAA has been overcharging for use of fuel facilities provided at Stansted.

A BAA spokesman said that it had appealed to Mr O’Leary to step in and resolve the dispute, but its efforts had been rejected. The spokesman said: “It is unprecedented for us to take a customer to court in this way. We have a contract with Ryanair which says they have to pay these charges. They are not allowed to offset them against fuel charges. Our lawyers have also written to Ryanair saying the discount will no longer apply because they have broken the contract by not paying their bills.

“We have the power to impound their planes, but we have chosen not to do that because they are a valued customer.”

Ryanair had 12.5 million passengers at Stansted last year, 60 per cent of total traffic at the airport. The importance of Stansted to Ryanair was shown last year when it bought Buzz largely to secure the airline’s slots at the airport.

Ryanair is today expected to announce that it will nearly triple the aircraft it bases at Luton and establish nine new routes from there. At present it operates the equivalent of only 1.5 planes at Luton, but this will rise to four.

A Ryanair spokesman said: “We are issuing our own proceedings against BAA for over-charging on fuel levies at Stansted over a 12-year period.” The spokesman also claimed BAA could not legally cancel the discount Ryanair receives on airport charges.

EasyJet yesterday said that it is to add three aircraft to its 13 at Luton by next spring.

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Surely if BAA is serious about wanting this money it should just impound a RYR aircraft? I bet the money would be paid by lunchtime if this happenned!
If this non-payment of landing fees is specific to RYR and no other airlines are late payers then it tells me a lot about RYR's business tactics....

One of my previous employers (A major bank) had a (unofficial) policy of not paying any invoices until the nasty letters started to arrive. It was done on the basis that the suppliers were normally small guys and couldnt afford to cause trouble with the bank as they needed the cashflow more than the bank needed the service supplied.
Finance Director got a shock one day when all the PC's crashed as a software provider came in and removed all his programmes. We needed the programmes and said software guy left the office only when payment was made. Drastic action but it worked. Taught the FD a lesson though!
Does anyone know is RYR known in the business as a late payer?

A few Mareva Injunctions will do the trick .... Vintage ATCO has done a few in his time I suspect :)

From what I know RYR is also well known for non-payment of landing fees to Hahn airport since it started to fly there. Ofcourse they pay SOMETIMES, but not too often.

I think if I can manage to refuse our payments to:
- airports
- fuel suppliers
- Eurocontrol
- leasing companies
- insurance companies
- maintenance and overhaul companies
- local offices electricity and gas suppliers
- staff salaries
- etc

then just give me 56 days and I will retire on day 57 being listed in Forbes top of the richest people :cool:

Ryanair -Couple of the broadsheets are talking about 4 based aircraft & up to 9 new routes at LTN