Luton
 

Just received my online edition of the LLA newsletter. While it mentions new services from Wizz and Ryanair already mentioned here sometime ago there is still no mention of the BMI service to Brussels. There is also no mention of it in the news section of the airport’s website or in the websites airline section. I take it that the service is still set to run?

You can book flights on BMI's website; I actually booked a long weekend trip for April last week.

Whilst it is not actually mentioned in their normal press releases yet, it does feature in their trade section, so yes, it does appear to be operating as originally stated, from Mar 27th, three times daily.

Luton Landing Fees
 

Anybody have any ideas on landing, handling and parking fees for a 737 or A320?

Also what are fuel costs like at Luton for these aircraft?

:)

Airports have published fees, but these charges are subject to negotiation depending upon a whole raft of factors inc subsidies from the airport and regional grants.

The only way to find out, is to make direct contact with your business plan to both the airport operator and the based agents.

Mind you, the more pax you carry, the cheaper the rate.

I hear that 5 companies want to run the new Thameslink rail franchise, which is due to begin in April. They are National Express, FirstGroup and Stagecoach and two consortia, one between John Laing and MTR of Hong Kong and the other involving Danish Railways and EWS. Thameslink run the airports railway station and operate the majority of rail services to the capital from the airport.

The company recently cut back off peak services from the airport to London from 8 to 6 trains per hour

LTN - BRU

With Eurostar services ehading for St Pancras within a couple of years I am genuinely surprised by this move from bmi. With minimal connections from LTN they must be focusing on outbound traffic for passengers, but by far the quickest and easiest way to get to Brussels these days is the train.

BMI’s choice of routes is very strange. Luton Airport Parkway is only a 27 minute train journey to the Eurostar terminal which opens in 2007.

No one is going to travel out of London and pass by Eurostar to use the BMI service and with the Eurostar terminal less than 30 minutes from Luton who wants to catch a 3 x daily service when trains will run at least every hour.

Mr Stelios is hopping mad at the thought of National Express running both the coach and rail links to/from London and will give his evidence soon to the SRA stating that NE will dictate public transport fares from Luton to London and battering easyBus with undercutting tactics to force him off?

I understand that Luton were well thought of at the annual route show in Copenhagen recently?

That's right Buster. Stelios was giving evidence at the Competition Enquiry yesterday and is fuming. Following on from the success of easyBus from LTN, he wants to start a service from LGW to London and as LGW also falls within the Thameslink franchise, the sight of Nat Exp on both road & rail would be a double blow.

It doesn’t take many people to travel on an easybus minibus to make it look full except most of the busses I have seen look somewhat empty particularly on the leg out of London.

ground radar
 

So does Luton ground radar actually work? While in fog today tower was asking whether company aircraft had past behind. Seem to get a lot of this type of talk at LTN. Surly with ground radar the tower should see what is going on or are there dead spots around the airport?

The Surface Movement Radar at Luton has been there for a long time, pre all the development that has taken place over the last 10 years or more. The location of any single source surface radar tends to be a bit of a compromise given all the buildings on an airport, and as you put up more buildings the blank areas around the taxiways tend to increase. We still have absolute coverage of the runway.

And there is a super new whizzo one coming soon. :ok: :D This will have more than one source so should avoid blank areas.

Vintage-are you going down the FR route?

Wasn’t it the case that the Cat 3 ILS was sold as buy 2 and get a free Surface Movement Radar?

Also with all the development work that has taken place is the tower still in the best location and is it still tall enough to see over all of the new buildings?

I understand that easyJet were going to re-fly their initial flight to Scotland on Nov 10th as a way of celebrating their historic 10th birthday founded by a mad Greek who created the low fares culture.

It is rumoured that 'management' are not going to do this and therefore lose all the FREE advertising that goes with this!

No, we had the SMR long before we were Cat 2/3. I think we got a free NDB with something but can't remember what now. :confused: :D

Yes, it's fine.


almost professional - No, not FR but not sure if I am at liberty to say who/what. ;)

What does S06 hold in store?
 

Comparing S06 with S05, we can expect the following:

A third Britannia aircraft based (with a fourth at certain times during the week). This year it's been a 757 and a 767. What's in store next year?

More Wizz flights. The Poznan will be 5 weekly by then, and rumours appeared on the previous thread that Wizz intended introducing further destinations.

The BMi jungle jet operating 3 daily to BRU.

No Swefly flights.

The second Helvetic daily to Zurich.

But what of EZY and FR? For winter FR are operating one fewer daily flight than summer, but what of next year? And EZY have added a few destinations (like Bremen), but seem to be redeploying existing based aircraft rather than adding new ones.

Probably more Monarch flights, particularly to TFS and AGP, but any others? Again, according to rumours appearing on the old thread a couple of new destinations are in prospect.

Finally, what about these 'new' operators? Air Berlin? Ciao Fly??

Informed speculation and hard news welcome!

Anyone know how successful the rail link bendy bus trial was that run for a week in the summer. It made a big difference to passenger comfort, as there were plenty of seats for everyone. Any chance of the airport buying a couple of these mega busses?

Thought this year it was 2 x 757's and a 767 for half of the week.

I wonder if slots at Gatwick are getting tight for IT flights with airlines like easyjet offering a year round service as opposed to Britannia who want to operate more services in the summer than the winter. Maybe this is the reason for the extra aircraft next summer.

Ciao Fly...........................I doubt it (He He!)

Air Berlin. According to an old timer from Luton now residing in Spain...........................Yes, as stated in the Spanish media!

No chance of any easyJet expansion (Not unless they re-jig thier current plans) until Luton has easyOrange A319's based in 2007.

Thomsonfly will be basing a 737 at LTN for S06?. Anyone confirm.

Three new destinations for Wizz ex LTN in the pipeline for the first 6 months of 2006.

Would think that a daily rotation to another destination will follow for the BMI jungle jet, as it sits on the ground for 5 hrs in between the first & second BRU ops.

Seccond daily Helvetic to ZRH now in operation.

FR to base two more 738s for S06. Ezy, as said before, will become clearer over the next few weeks but definately new routes to follow.

Two new euro airlines plus one UK for next year S06. No based aircraft by any.

Two new routes by MON. 40% expansion this coming winter over W05.

So 2006 is looking to be a great year

I have lost the plot here, are Thomsonfly operating scheduled services from Luton next year or selling seats from their charter programme. If it were a proper scheduled service then a 737 would be the aircraft of choice. http://book.thomsonfly.com/cgi-bin/t...l?language=en.

So what are we looking at then overall, is it 2 x 757, a 767 and a 737 for next summer?

The airport must love the Wizz operation. Lots of flights with no aircraft night stopping so no new stands required.

Based airlines
 

No airport like base operators.....

1. They want to park their smelly aircraft all over the nice new concrete, blocking aprons & terminal stands.
2. They want office space, staff car parking & complain if they have to park too far away.
3. They want discounts on fees.
4. They want to maintain aircraft with those maintenance people, well there the worst, wanting to go and run their engines and annoy all the airport neighbours......

The airport ideal, as stated, is an airline based somewherelse, who only wants to land, park for 30-40 minutes and then departs.

easyJet may well have new routes, but no additional based aircraft until 2007? Mind you, with the new management in place, they might see thier dominance at Luton begin to crumble and fight back!

Wizz! must be Bulgaria and Romania?

Monarch, no surprise.

Thomsonfly must be an 800 to differentiate thier rather cloudy brand image?

BMI Regional to Munich?

Another UK airline apart from FlyBe (Jersey) or BMI (Brussels)........No idea! Jet2 venturing south?

(Edited bit) GB Airways were rumoured a while back?

RYR, no great secret.

2 EU airlines.......from Mr Luton Relic's comments to me, that one would be Air Berlin, but I am not convinced.

I bet at least one is EC- reg?

Hot off the press, easy 737-800's are coming - Boeing have been back in the building! ;)

Guess they're going to have to build a multi-story ramp to put all the aircraft on though!

easy to buy 800's..........and trade in a few 319's (I added that bit!). Might as well 'shrink wrap' easyLand in Ryanair blue and paint a harp on the front!

If the expert FR chaps keep doing Flap 10 landings, who knows, maybe we can just buy the 800's from them! :8

I would of thought, BMI Regional maybe adding Munich and hopefully EZY adding Hamburg, with the world cup coming up and all, also heard bout easyjet maybe venturing to Malta maybe a future destination from LTN

Komg Pong - this is a relatively new Luton air traffic control procedure invoked when the visibility falls below 400 metres. Previously, ATC had to separate each aircraft on the taxiway system below this visibility but it is now possible to permit the pilots to self-separate on the same taxiway provided that the the following aircraft can see the one in front.

This has enabled the airport's movement rates in fog to be safely increased (although obviously, not to the same amount as when it's clear).

The procedure has absolutely nothing to do with the surface movement radar being unable to 'see' the taxiways.

:ok:

LTNman -

I'll bow to your superior knowledge as to Britannia's 757/767 mix this year. If they've got 2 757s and half a 767, that's an increase on last year, and not what the brochures suggested.

As far as Thomsonfly 2006 being scheduled services or charters, I now believe this distinction is effectively redundant. They will be using TOM flight numbers and the flights are bookable without accommodation. But the timings are not the same every day, and there seems no distinction between a 757-operated 'charter' and a 737-operated 'schedule'. I've a feeling the TOM flights from COV BOH and DSA can be used as part of a package.

Bobby Guzzler -

Sorry, no chance of EZY -800s. EZY have invested in Airbus, and their huge orders/options can be converted to A320 or A321 if required. The 737-300s will only stay as long as the leases, and I would wager the -700s will go, especially if EZY can place them in a new home.

Buster -

Is the 'new' UK airline NOT BMi? Are you guessing or do you 'know'? Jet2 I feel is unlikely. They have just announced a further strengthening of their Northern roots with operations at NCL and BLK. Can't see the population of Luton wearing flat 'ats and eating black pudding.

Well they fly to both Gatwick and Bournemouth.

A Cork to Luton route would work on a daily basis?

I see that Stansted only reported a 5% increase in passengers for September, yet another month of single digit growth. The days of 20-30% growth are over until the second runway opens, if it is ever approved?

Plenty of scope now for Luton to soak up the excess growth north of the Thames! Stansted has plenty of runway capacity, but not stand availability during peak hours.

Seeing that Stansted handles over twice as many passengers as Luton a 5% growth there would be equivalent to around 12% here in physical passengers, which is the expected growth rate for Luton for September.

Luton also has plenty of pinch points that still need sorting out which will restrict growth in the short to medium term. Something radical is needed to get cars out of the central area not only for parking but also for picking up and dropping off passengers. One such radical idea would be to build a new terminal frontage in the mid term car park. Plenty of room here for a proper drop off area and short term parking. From here a rapid transit system would whisk passengers and meeters and greeters to the terminal proper in around 30 seconds.

Provisional stats for September show that 862,689 passengers used Luton up 122,000 or 16.7%. Year on year figures are 8,868,049 up 1,650,000 or 22.9%.

9,000,000 is starting to look like it might occur around November, Not bad seeing that 8,000,000 was passed only in April of this year.

looks like LTN management have finally got things moving the right way.

new car cark
 

I have been studying the outline planning application for the old Vauxhall site at http://www2.luton.gov.uk/kimptonroad/. The proposal includes a 24m high mega multi story car park for the airport, which will contain 5000 spaces. The location for this is at the back end of the development in the northeastern corner. Location maps can be found in the development framework plan. Also worth looking at the Development concept aerial prospective link in the mauve section

BMI Regional doing MUC makes sense especially in between the BRU they plan to do. Debonair used to fly MGL-LTN-MUC-LTN-MGL with good timings. LTN-BRU-LTN-MUC-LTN-BRU-LTN will work commercially but not from a crewing angle :confused:

Yet another half ~ no, it's completely baked ~ plan from Luton Borough Council.

A multi-story car park designed to serve LTN having a capacity of 5000 cars sited on a combined business park/residential development with a single access/exit onto Kimpton Road just won't work.

You only have to look at similar business park/residential development sites to see the queues of traffic weekdays trying to get in between 8.15am and 9am, and trying to get out again between 4.30pm and 6pm, to realise that LTN's airline passengers using the facility during 'rush hours' are not going to find this concept efficient or user-friendly.

What's required is a second access/exit point that primarily serves the car park combined with bus lanes to enable public services and airport-related buses to avoid being caught up in the traffic.

The next step will no doubt be to ban all private vehicles (public and airport-related staff but excluding vehicles owned by disabled drivers) from the airport site and to require everyone to catch a shuttle bus to/from the central terminal area or other worksite on the Airport.

Judging by the Kimpton Road proposal, if you live locally it'd be quicker to walk and if not, to catch the train to Luton Airport Parkway station and take your bike.

Which is probably the Council's cunning master plan...

:hmm:

Actually the scheme is not from the council but from Southside & City Developments Ltd who own the land and the airport who are desperate for car park spaces. Got to admit when I saw the “high density” housing proposal I thought of Marsh Farm and the famous Luton riots a few years back. With 5000 cars to choose from the residence will have a nice choice of cars to steal.

Lets also no forget Airparks who use land at Slip End on the wrong side of the M1 for parking. Their large car park always seems full.

The MUC route i think would defintaely work considering the World Cup coming up and im sure there will be an extra need for flights to MUC from May time