Four runways again! What report, the same old one from months ago?

Alarming report says North Herts villages ?should be wiped? for Luton Airport expansion - News - The Comet

Yawn - a bunch of architects who seem to focus on underground / metro stations sent in a submission to the Airports Commission, along with a bunch of other people with their own ideas.

Somebody else submitted an idea to the commission to say that Heathrow should have 7 runways, but don't see anyone taking that idea seriously either. The 4 runways at Luton makes a good headline for a local paper though !
BBC News - Four unusual blue-sky ideas to solve airport capacity

It's a report dated last October by an independent firm of consultants. I think it shows the (lack of) calibre of the airport's local detractors that they've only just found out about it.
Or is it just another "silly season" story designed to sell newspapers?

For what it's worth, there is absolutely zero chance of this proposal being taken seriously, much less implemented.

I just thought it was funny that the Comet thought it was news, once again, it is always by one reporter and is not actually news.

Some nice photos taken 75 years ago at Luton once you have got past the advert.VIDEO: Large crowd and VIPs as Luton Airport opens - Nostalgia - Luton Today

I had to use the short term car park last week and parked for 1 hour 20 minutes, the cost was £11. Not content with fleecing me for the price of a curry I then also picked up a £1.35 handling charge for using a credit card.:{

Once in the terminal I needed to go on-line at £5 for up to one hour. It seems that Luton has the joint highest terminal internet access in the UK.:sad:

Just glad I did not need a £2 trolly.:yuk:

Do they charge a pound for a pee or a euro for a urination ?

LTN and other airports are determined to make your flying experience as unpleasent as possible as soon as you arrive in order to fleece you for ridiculous charges.

High Internet costs
 

Stansted Wi-Fi FREE for the first hour

I have never paid for Wi-Fi at Luton, just search for open networks and log-on :)
Can't remember which network it was as I use so many at different airports.

Routes Online reporting that TAROM will commence a twice weekly LTN-IAS on 27 Oct.

Yes and bookable on TAROM website.

Flights will operate on Tuesday and Saturday with a 737-300.

Brace yourself for the flight times:

RO395
dept. IAS @ 21:30
arr. LTN @ 22:55

RO396
dept. LTN @ 23:45
arr. IAS @ 05:05

Did Tarom use 2 of their 14 weekly slot pairs at Heathrow as a short term experiment to see how Iasi would fare with the intention of eventually moving it to Luton anyway, or did Tarom originally believe that it might be worth running a full Heathrow-Iasi service ?

Separately, does Tarom have the cost base to profitably serve a LTN-IAS route where the passenger base is largely price-focussed, especially when Bacau with Blue Air is relatively nearby ?

FRatSTN - Tarom to Iasi may have antisocial flight times... but then it's the same with Blue Air to Bacau. Until Baneasa closed, Wizz also had some grim timings to Bucharest

Blue Air to Bacau through the winter is decent timings. 3 of the 4 flights per week are around 16:00, the other leaves around 09:00.

Even now, only 3 of the 5 flights per week have the antisocial times leaving at 01:05. There's still 2 flights a week that leave at 10:40.

I don't expect it really to reduce TAROM's performance of the route though, I was just saying that the times are not great.

Bacau is still 2 hours from Iasi by road. There's little competition with no alternative choice for direct flights to Iasi from the UK, so people will just have to like it or lump it I suppose.

Three further destination to add to the party!
 

Great to hear about TAROM and Iasi!

But just to add to the party, Luton have announced on their website a further three East European destinations with Wizz Air, starting this winter:
Donetsk, Ukraine
Kosice, Slovakia
Craiova, Romania

Luton must be becoming, one of the most well connected airports in Western Europe with Eastern Europe!

Fly to the ?City of a Million Roses? from London Luton Airport - London Luton Airport

Was it Iasi that was inviting bids to serve Luton, or was that another Romanian airport?

Sibiu were looking for airlines to fly specifically luton-sibiu, not heard anything since July

More lost jobs as the never ending supply of Eastern Europeans move to the UK to take low paid work, pay next to no tax due to their poor wages and swamp the maternity wards with their new babies that we will have to educate.

Ridiculous post to be honest mate. :rolleyes:

Maybe so but if you catch the airport staff bus you will be lucky to hear English. Uncontrolled immigration is causing real problems in many parts of the UK but that has nothing to do with this thread so I will end it there.:mad: :oh::oh:

Are, the Tarom Il-18's would be nice.....3 at once a few years ago now!

pabely - I think you're *really* pushing it to expect Il-18s any more - even airlines in places like Somalia have finally ditched their Il-18s now. I can't think of any airline anywhere in the world which uses Il-18s in ordinary commercial passenger service any more.

Face it, sad though it is to say, when Tarom turn up at Luton, it's going to be with a B737 or (if you're lucky) an A318

Sorry, just flew down memory lane of them sitting on the ponderosa (as it was called then). A school/student charter if memory serves me right? I have a pichure as I'm sure others do as they came in on a few saturdays I think.

I was told today that Sólyom (Falcon) Hungarian Airways will commence ops from Luton in October.

So that's 6 flights to Romania by Wizzair, 2 by Blue Air, 1 by Tarom (maybe more to come), have EZY & RYR missed the boat with new EU members?

Sólyom (Falcon) Hungarian Airways
 

Obviously Luton will be a feeder for the 1M passengers to China they say they will fly in the future:E

Tarom
 

No-one took the bait..

YR-IMG Ilyushin Il-18V Tarom Luton, UK - 11th February 1989 Back in May 1975 three LOT Il-18's arrived in Dublin on football charter flights as Poland were playing Ireland. Unfortunately I didn't own a camera at that time but this scene at Luton 14 y

So to summarise...

New Routes - Winter 2013-14
Venice - easyJet (A319/A320)
Sharm el Sheikh - Monarch Airlines (A320/A321)
Iasi - TAROM (B737)
Skiathos - Thomson Airways (B737?)
Craiova - Wizz Air (A320)
Kosice - Wizz Air (A320)
Donetsk - Wizz Air (A320)
Budapest - Solyom Hungarian Airlines (B737) - To Be Confirmed?

Terminated Destinations (not including seasonal routes)
Thessaloniki - Thomson (B737?)

Net Routes (+7) - That does seem bloody good in the current financial climate, the London airport competition, the taxation and the 'holiday airport' tradition Luton seems to have. The airport certainly shouldn't rest on its laurels; plenty more markets can still be served.

Anything I've missed? Any more rumours?

I do hear of more to come next year, but not from UK based airlines, but isn't that what Luton needs....

It's interesting that two recent arrivals - Tarom and El Al - both continue with their LHR operations alongside LTN.

Presumably they are looking for London slots at (much) lower costs than LHR, fewer ATC delays, quicker turn-rounds, and are not bothered about interlining traffic. They get good surface access, and slots are available outside peak times.

Makes one wonder if anyone else is thinking along the same lines....

El-AL fares usually don't seem that much different from Heathrow compared to Luton.

Just remember that AENA factor! And the good folk within marketing at Luton that strive to deliver and maybe now might get some parental support?

AENA Vs MAG is going to be an interesting battle!

The Falcon Hungarian info came from a reliable source. At Hurn today a 737 in their colours was towed out after paint minus the engines.

From an FT blog:

Hungary: Wizz takes aim at new airline | beyondbrics

Solyom Hungarian Airways, the new Hungarian airline that is promising to serve 96 destinations with a fleet of 50 jets by 2017, has barely launched its website, let alone a fully loaded aeroplane – before coming under attack.

And from an unusual source: Wizz Air, a low-fare airline in Central and Eastern Europe, is normally a low-key player when it comes to commenting on rivals – certainly it eschews the headline-grabbing verbal fireworks associated with Ryanair. But a statement by Wizz on Thursday was a little more spiky than usual.

Despite it’s position that it “usually does not comment the activity of competitors…. as the development and the future of the Hungarian civil aviation is important for the airline, we decided to share the thoughts of our experts with the public,” Wizz declared, stressing that, with Solyom still firmly on the tarmac, it preferred only to discuss “general questions raised in connection with the current initiatives.”

The problem with new airlines is that the vast majority “never take off or go bankrupt within a few years. Bankruptcy may occur when these companies are not able to pay their bills and one of the critical service providers decides to pull the trigger,” said Wizz.

Indeed, Wizz Air itself needed “tens of millions euro in equity or equity-related financing forms to financially handle the initial period” and this was “at a time when the European economy soared and the oil price was half of the price of today.”

In the current economic climate, and with higher oil prices, and with “much stronger competition” between airlines, the need for start-up capital is even more acute. “Those who do not have the sufficient capital investment have no reasonable chance of being one of the few that won’t go bankrupt within a few years,” and many have done so, intoned Wizz.

Then there is the question of leasing older aeroplanes – Solyom has said it plans to lease six Boeing 737-500 aircraft in August, planes described by one aviation consultant as “old, noisy and very fuel thirsty. ”

Wizz Air argues that what it termed “an outdated fleet” raises questions in relation to “operational reliability and efficiency. A 20-30 year old aircraft has much higher maintenance costs than a new aircraft,” which in turn “further weaken competitiveness.”

So far, so fair? Perhaps. But was the rival carrier not going too far with this final salvo?

True, Solyom has been cagey about its financial backers. It says has concluded agreements with two strategic investors, an unnamed “tourism enterprise,” registered in Oman, and a “well-capitalised investor with extensive international relations,” registered in the United Arab Emirates.

But is it just “protecting the interests of passengers” when Wizz puts pressure on the national airline authorities to dig into Solyom’s finances? Wizz Air is hardly a neutral third party in all this – it will face increased competition if, and when, the new carrier takes to the skies.

Solyom Hungarian Airways didn’t comment on the Wizz Air statement. Beyondbrics also put this question of impartiality to a Wizz Air spokesperson, who replied:

“We have been inundated for two weeks with statement requests on Solyom. Over the past few days most of these requests morphed into queries related to general policy, general market dynamics and general industry expertise, yet clearly we could see the motivation behind these queries was Solyom. To satisfy the media, we decided to draw a bottom line on this issue and share an expert opinion, of which I am sure that it is equal to expert opinions that can be collected from other sources… [this] remains the same regardless if you have Solyom in mind, or TAP or Tarom.”

In October 2012, OLT Express began flying from Southend. Southend management actively promoted Easyjet, but did not seem keen on OLT Express and seemed to make great efforts to minimise any public association with OLT Express. In January 2013, OLT Express went bankrupt.

There has been much comment on the web as to whether Solyom is likely to be credible. Given that so many commentators seem to doubt Solyom's plans, is it really a good thing for Luton airport if Solyom starts selling tickets from a hill in Bedfordshire ?

mmmmm...

who can forget Sky Europe, Debonair, Ciao Fly, Silverjet, etc.

The comments I've read are very skeptical about the credibilty of Solyom. Apparently they intend operating a "premium service" (non-loco) on 20-year old 737-500s.

Of course they won't get into LHR (or even Gatters at the times they want) so I wouldn't be surprised to see them up on the hill.

Ex (ages ago) Braathens in full Falcon livery at Hurn today. Mind you, no engines, but they can be added later. Been sat there for over two years looking for a new operator, so maybe lease deals from Aircraft | BBAM Aircraft Leasing and Management are good value?

Yes because we all know that Stansted couldn't possibly be an option don't we?:rolleyes:

Only stating what I was told from a reliable source.

London Luton is known as the arrival airport for the London area by Wizz passengers (and we know how long their operations lasted in Essex!).

I suspect Luton is the choice of East European operations because of RYR in Essex. This is something MAG will need to address if it hopes to attact new airlines.

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/1128/dz55.jpg

Looks like they are looking to replace Malev with 110 seats in two cabin classes, 12 in business, 98 in economy. I would have thought Gatwick would be a big contender for the London route as they are looking to squeeze more aircraft movements into their airport.