The last i heard the East apron was planned for NE flights! unless Big Orange have asked for them to be parked round the back!

Notice that Wizz have five early morning arrivals at LTN today, all within the space of an hour. Is that a record ?. Must represent about a third of their current fleet !

Luckily, they are 5 arrivals after stands have become vacant. Imagine if they all night stopped, they might have to operate from the ASDA car park!

As an aside, with Northolt running out of slots for biz jets during the remainder of 2007 and Farnborough/TAG battling over planning restrictions governing yearly movement totals, are many exec flights being turned away from Luton currently and if so, where are they going?

Do biz jet operators still position jets into Luton over the weekend due to restrictions at other airports like London City?

With the onslaught of the Very Light Jets, how long before airports and operators put minimum weight restrictions to prevent the operation of these types as they take a 'slot' but make a lot less money than a BBJ?

There will be other places for VLJ traffic I suspect. Oxford looks set for major investment with an ILS, and the likes of Turweston and Leicester will be able to handle them with 800-900m tarmac- if the NIMBYs don't get in the way.

Southend.... Open 24/7 with an ILS and is only 36 miles from Canary Wharf

Bizjets
 

Guys, In answer to your question of where the bizjets are going, Stansted has seen a big increase in Biz activity since LTN & NHT applied slots to these airports:D

Heard no more on Premjet recently, and since i mentioned it on here, the artists impression of the check in lounge(harrods) has dissappeared off their website???? Wonder if we will have a few more american flights tonight after the Wembley NFL game today??

It'll only take severe departure delays due to adverse slot times or a security issue for that plan to come seriously undone. It won't be long before this sort of situation requires LLAO to declare a "Full House" and to refuse to accept any more arrivals until a few departures get away. It's just as well that (at least to start with) SkyEurope will be arriving in the afternoon outside LTN's early morning two-hour peak period. Interesting times ahead... :uhoh:

Can anyone confirm that the runway will be closed from midnight in the next couple weeks for Mx?

Looks that way.

Repairing the repairs????

Aircrarft Stands
 

I think you will find that it is only at weekends at Wizz have five aircraft arriving between 0700-0800 hrs and that it would have to take a major breakdown in ATC or security for no room for them by that time. Sky Europe DO arrive in the morning but at 0810 which is well after the mad early morning rush.
On a positive note the first Jersey European Isle of Man service arrived on time on Sunday operated by Dash 8 G-JEDW and was apparently full.

FIRST Capital Connect (FCC)and Eurostar have announced the introduction of through rail fares to mainland Europe that will be available to customers travelling from 15 stations including Luton Airport Parkway. First Capital Connect will be connecting with up to 17 Eurostar services a day to Paris and up to 10 a day to Brussels from November 14th.

Goodbye Easyjet Luton to Paris me thinks:sad:

Agreed. Can't see the four flights a day to CDG carrying on much after April 08, with the trains connecting to Eurostar, passing a half a mile away.

Judging by some of the fares being charged currently, flying could still be an option as it can be rather cheap compared to Eurostar. We recently flew to Paris to see my old mate Winnie the Pooh. Flying was substantially cheaper, the trip would not have been economical by rail even though we booked a few months ahead.

Having said that, the two hour check in at both airports makes the rail journey far more enticing!

Can you imagine all the hundreds of VLJ's (Very Light Jets) winging around low level at 250kts in the FIR! Certainly will make London LARS exciting :eek:

Do biz jet operators still position jets into Luton over the weekend due to restricti
 

Yes they do. Very often there are a stream of NJE flights coming in from City, Northolt or Farnborough.

Luton FBO's are turning away far more biz jets than any other FBO's right now. Currently running at in excess of a 150 aircraft a month being turned away. This is not a slot issue, it is usually possible to work a slot for any movement at any time just my nudging the arrival or departure time 15 minutes or so either way. No-one seems to give a toss if you miss your slot anyway because the airport operator don't impose any penalties on aircraft that miss them.

Most of the business jets that are turned away from Luton end up in Stansted. They must think Christmas has come early!

As for VLJ's, well, machines like the LEA Mustangs will probably frequent places like Luton a fair amount. Many of the other 'lighter' VLJ's are little more than jet powered Piper Navajo's. These will typically be flown by owner flyers out of smaller airfields as they will be too cheapskate to pay handling and Luton type fees. There is a view in some circles that all these PPL's flying around in little performance jets will lead to some interesting conflicts in the FIR. I guess we will have to wait and see!

Heard on the radio the other night a biz jet reporting to Harrods that they would be arriving in 30 minutes. Harrods said no as the aircraft was not booked in and that they were full despite the pilot protesting that a booking had been made.

So while Harrods prepares to open its new base at Luton Signature seems to be happy in doing nothing.

The situation with ramp space is dire. But unless land is released by the airport operator on favourable lease terms there will be no more ramp space for GA. The airport operator have done a fine job of boxing the place in and reducing the amount of useable ramp area on the Signature side.

They moved Gatehouse 5 closer to the mini tower and made the road wider eating into valuable ramp space. Dispensed of stand 51 or the 'light aircraft stand' which was a fine way of disposing of 4 prime departure positions. The Holiday Inn Express hotel has completely stuffed and way off using the space that was to the rear of stand 16

So quiet where they expand I don't know

Wonder if it was a good move for Signature to lease/ sell / release its two original hangars to Gulfstream, as those hangars could park many aircraft.
What’s happened to Signatures new terminal? Have they now abandoned the idea seeing that even if they operated from a portaloo their apron would still be full?