I think Wizz would struggle to get the slots it requires to get all its aircraft on the ground and off again in the two 45 minute early morning windows used for arrivals and departures. Even then most of its arrivals and departures are actually within 30 minutes.

They also don't do that well in head to head competition with Ryanair who would no doubt take a careful look at a Wizzair Stansted operation.

I don't understand why people think Wizz would leave, They have it all to themselves at Luton. Luton itself is absolutely jam packed full of eastern europeans. Why move to a more expensive airport which is base to Ryanair & which also has Easyjet expanding into it. Doesnt seem logical to me.

Someone needs to pick up that Waterford route, All I hear is people whining about not having the connection. Online and Offline.

I think the Waterford route would have more of a chance if people weren't so insistent it was from Luton. Would it really be that bad it was from Southend, Stansted, Gatwick, or even London City? Yet I still struggle to see who would operate them, it would seem not to be Flybe, but they could surprise us.

FRatSTN

The airline that is in discussions to take over the route is not Flybe and currently does not serve the UK or Irish market, a few restrictions to overcome before any decision is made.

As for other airports, passengers don't want other airports, polls were carried out at STN and SEN were last on the list, LTN and LGW were almost even on popularity and when airport charges and aircraft size required at LGW, LTN will be picked.

With EIR due to get new aircrafts any chance we'll see them back on the route?

Highly doubt RE will be back. New aircraft are to only replace old, no expansion at all really.

How to kill a successful route that has run for years? Move it to the east coast and then due to customer resistance still have to run a service from Luton thus splitting the loads. Maybe the case that Stobart does not always get it right.

Quite agree with you LutonMan. Only moved it to Southend because Stobart took a share in Aer Arran and needed and airline to operate from Southend when they began there investment. It smacks of people who don´t know about the airline business - aka Bob Ayling (BA) and Andrew Tinkler (Stobart) - thinking they know best - not!

But opening the Irish routes from SEN was a good move from SEN's (and therefore Stobart's) point of view since it re-introduced scheduled services to the airport with all the concomitant advantages that accrued. No other airline was prepared to do this. However, once EZY was established at SEN there was no reason to continue with the Irish services if they weren't making money. So not a simple case of getting it wrong, because the actual routes were secondary to the establsihment of some schedules.

Opening SEN routes lost Stobart's investment thousands of regular passengers who were had no choice but to fly with Ryanair to Dublin. It is a simple case of getting it wrong as SEN expected everybody to move to a half finished terminal and continue to fly with RE which I bet management at RE knew wouldn't happen as management at WAT were well aware what was happening with SEN move. When EIR took over they almost doubled capacity on WAT-LTN route which RE wouldn't do to protect WAT-SEN services.

Indeed but hopefully the new carrier will begin by end of the year if all goes well. Could be some further details over the next few weeks.

I think you are attaching too much importance to the airline - Stobart's massive investment was in the airport and that simply had to succeed. It would have been good if the Waterford route had worked, of course, but not vital. Aer Arann played a part in the attraction of EZY to SEN and thus served its purpose.

If Waterford-LTN was such a succesful route it should be straightforward for another operator to step in, shouldn't it....?

Not exactly, the route needs a based aircraft at WAT or LTN doing 13x weekly at least to get the most out of it. The type of aircraft is also limited due to the length of WAT's runway, only turboprops/light jets. Cityjet, BE and not many more are available to try the route but no one has a spare aircraft to do it.

Only reason EZY moved to SEN was to give BAA the two fingers at STN because they were expensive to operate from and EZY had to drop/reduce most of the overlap routes between both airports to make it work for them.

There cost base at SEN is low and Aer Arann at SEN had zero to do with EZY coming to the airport. Carolyn McCall of EZY does is not going to jump into another airport just because a small regional carrier is there, give her some credit.

The cost base to even start the route is very high and in the current climate airlines are not going to take such risks. Then their is what was said above.

I believe that the reason Stobart was so eager to see the recommencement of scheduled services from SEN in March 2011 was in order to bolster shareholder confidence. They needed to show that the airport could 'attract' an existing operator and if that operator was willing to switch flights from an existing LON airport to SEN so much the better. Aer Arann fitted the bill ideally and Stobart used their influence as shareholders in the airline to achieve their aim.

Whether or not the presence of Aer Arann operations at SEN had much influence on the easyJet decision I wouldn't like to say; but it cannot have done the negotiations any harm.

Getting back to LTN, it's easy to say that no one took up the vacant WAT route because no airline had any spare capacity, but I doubt that is really true. It is quite possible that yields were insufficient by then to make it worthwhile for anyone else to make the effort to restart the route. There is little doubt that the route performed well until around 2010 but after that the combined effects of the overall recession and the Irish economic collapse changed the picture completely.

My point exactly. At that time Stobart had only £2m invested in Aer Arann. They could have chosen any suitable UK or RoI regional airline to start operations from SEN. In fact, they would probably have rather taken on an airline offering services to the east of SEN rather than to the the west. As EF says, it can't have done any harm for EZY to see that schedules were operating from SEN.

Another reason why Luton is tops with the VVIP market?
 

What is London's best business aviation airport? - Corporate Jet Investor

I know not everyone wants to go to the City of London but with full 24x7 access and stands maxed out, Luton could do more with laying more concrete, lets hope things move forward if it gets a new team running things.

The Return of a Sibiu Service?
 

Looks like we might be seeing the return of a service to Sibiu in Romania, which Blue Air use to fly...

Sibiu airport have put out a tender to airlines to operate the service and offer financial aid on the route for a five year period...

Interestingly Sibiu Airport are clearly stating they want the route to operate to "London (Luton)", and not just a London airport. If the incentive/financial aid is good enough, wouldn't surprise me if Wizzair picks up the route or Blue Air looks to it being re-introduced. It would however be nice to see another airline flying to the airport.

The airport is seeking a connection to Luton with a minimum of two weekly flights and closing date for applications is the 3rd July is anyone is interested in starting it up?! They are also seeking connections to other European cities, but Luton seems to be top of the list, with the tenders closing before the other routes.

It seems Luton has a small little fan base building up around Europe, especially with passengers in Waterford wanting a specific service to Luton and not just London. In the same way Sibiu wants a similar service!

http://www.sibiuairport.ro/auction.html

http://www.sibiuairport.ro/uploads/p...Auction001.pdf

If an airline proposed a service to Stansted (or even Southend) would Sibiu airport really decline ?
Come to think of it, Tarom run a twice weekly from Iasi to Heathrow and I imagine the people of Iasi are happy enough without having flights to Luton.

Is it possible that someone has agreed that the contract at Sibiu should be awarded only to Wizz or Blue air and this is just a way of keeping Ryanair from the party ?

Well I suppose it depends how successful the tendering process it and how many applications they get...

I regularly have to submit tenders as part of my role at work... Even thought I don't work in the airline industry, I am however aware when completing a tender, you must nearly always meet all the criteria's laid down in the invitation to submit a tender and if you don't meet all their requirements, your application will usually be automatically rejected.

If no airlines were willing to operate to Luton and their was only one application offering to fly another London airport, I would doubt they will reject the application on this basis.

I wouldn't reject Ryanair flying the route, they fly numerous routes from Luton which only operate 2-3 times a week... In recent years, they have increased the number of destinations hugely from Luton, but this has been done with just the same four aircraft based at the airport and reduced frequencies on existing routes instead. Also they do chop and change routes every so often too.

How about Carpatair?

Why would it be odd that another Eastern European Airport would focus on Luton in the London area. Luton is now majorly jam packed with Eastern European folks, Its the gateway lol. I for one welcome them, Lovely fit blonde women in the town instead of lumpy chavs pushing around their 7 kids. :ok:

Joking aside, Is it the Swiss lads that just announced a Cambridge base that are looking at the LTN Ireland route? Or is that rumour way off.