Since Monarch last operated 330s out of Luton (2001?) to Florida there has been a significant seat reduction on the airframes (as well as other weight saving measures) and so no or very few seats would have to be blocked off nowadays if the flights recommenced. The runway end turning circles were very tight for the allowed maximum nose wheel angle and thus some white marker stakes were installed to assist this.

Not being funny - LTN has, in the past few years, seen TCX departing to MJB with a decent pax load so I don't see any reason why it should be a problem to operate any LH programme.

Seems like this thread goes round in circles, this conversation pops up at least once a year and everyone ends up getting all nostalgic. :8

El al
 

Did it divert today due to fog

Seems it was due Luton at 08:30 but ended up at Heathrow at 10.05. It left Heathrow at 11.00 arriving Luton at 11.43.

The strange thing is that the timetable shows a 10.55 arrival time for Wednesday so it was only 45 minutes late.

Flew twice on Brit 767's to Orlando direct and one was G-BYAB.

I seem to remember Silverjet had no issues to New York albeit with few pax and they flew to Dubai.

787 will do Hawaii non-stop so I was told off Luton's runway and possibly Perth! Only issue is the fleet is not configured with a crew rest area (yet).

Question is: With APD and the variety of scheduled options, how can you make long haul charter work?

Transaero have no problem placing an A380 with 585 pax into thier market, but no doubt fuel price and APD are not the limiting factor?

Good to see you can fly soon from Stansted to Moscow via Turkey! My geography is not great, but that does seem quite a de-tour!

That is because most of us here seem to be old farts.

Ltnman - speak for yourself

Question is: With APD and the variety of scheduled options, how can you make long haul charter work?

In the case of TOM, by offering a superior product in economy than the alternative scheduled carriers on that route (wider seats/greater legroom etc) When it comes to Cancun (which is the now the biggest long-haul market for TUI) many of the hotels are only available by booking TUI holidays.

Blue Air 2014
 

Blue Air's summer 2014 schedule features LTN-Bucharest 6pw (not Wed) and LTN-Bacau 5pw (not Wed/Sat).
I think this is unchanged from 2013.

London Luton Airport and Carpatair announce new route from December 2013 - London Luton Airport
The picture shows everything old 737 about to be retired

Having flown in TUIC twice, their 'club' product is on par with Virgin Premier Economy and you land at an Orlando airport that is so much quicker to pass through than MCO has ever been.

Niche routes Thomson do rather well long-haul.

APD is still a huge tax with all its proceeds going to save a polar!

Long Haul
 

To be honest, the reason why LTN and STN do not have Long Haul is that it does not either have the sufficient demand or the its not cost effective for the airline to run it. If both these are ticked then they will probably start operating out of these airports. With regards to the odd 1 or 2 l/h operations previously they are uprobably sub-charters for cruises etc.

Buster, sorry, small point but might be worth making:

Thomson doesn't name a product just "club" as such, it has two products on the 787, economy club and premium club. I know you're most likely referring to the latter, but as TOM have called them both club I suppose it's as well to specify.

"Economy club" is excellent by the way and is getting rave reviews, bizarrely it's the premium cabin that has the most moans. Mainly about seats not reclining the full whack because it traps people in the centre. How did you find it?

AUGUST PASSENGER FIGURES
 

The figures have now been released - a total of 1,052,352 passengers used Luton in August up 0.9 per cent on August 2012. Rolling 12 months figures are 9,658,199 which is up 0.6 per cent.

Passenger Figures
 

Where is the growth coming from?

Does any one know what the Top 10 routes in terms of passenger numbers are from Luton?

They are listed here.

Key Facts - London Luton Airport

wallp - every month the CAA publishes provisional statistics for each route to/from the UK and also finalised statistics later. As an example of typical publication dates (varies a bit each month)

15 September - CAA publishes provisional stats for about 70% of UK airports for August
25 September - CAA publishes provisional stats for most of the remaining airports
10 October - CAA publishes finalised stats for all UK airports for August
15 October - CAA publishes provisional stats for about 70% of UK airports for September

You can find all the numbers at:
UK Airport Statistics | Aviation Intelligence | About the CAA
UK Airport Provisional Statistics | Aviation Intelligence | About the CAA

If you can come up with some interesting analysis of the passenger numbers, particularly anything that seems surprising, people on this thread are likely to be interested to hear about it

Tel Aviv
 

I could see them in the top 10 this year as Easyjet increased flights and El al have, with a few charters over easter and plane upgrades for El al compare to last year

I see Estonian Air had an arrival time of 7.25 today leaving at 8:00.

Was this a charter flight or a proving flight I wonder?

ESTONIAN AIR E170
 

I think it came in empty from Tallinn (eat your heart out climate change supporters) and left on a charter to Odessa. Also two Meridiana here carrying Napoli team and supporters - cannot remember them being here before also a Blue Panorama also with Napoli supporters this afternoon.