LUTON - 7
 

Opening a new thread as suggested by the mods.:)


OLY1B

Wizz Luton-Debrecen up to 5x weekly for summer 13

Not too surprised about that. There are no other competing services from the UK and Debrecen has good access to Eastern Slovakia, Western Romania, Ukraine and the western half of Hungary.

With all the new development, will the MNG A330 fit?

Looking at page 21 of the master plan, it shows the two existing cargo stands at an angle to each other maintaining a nice gap between wing tips as the aircraft are not parked side by side.

On page 23 with Signatures new hangar taking up a good chunk of the old cargo apron both stands are now side by side but further back and so the wing tips are now clear of the side of the cargo building.

It is hard to tell what impact these new stands will have on the parking of an A330 but it looks like both stands will still be the same size.

I read in last week’s Sunday rag that Park Plaza Hotels have submitted a planning application to build a six story hotel in Airport Way principally aimed at airport passengers.

If permission is obtained this would give the airport its fifth hotel. Only a couple of months ago the airport only had two which were the Ibis and the Holiday Inn Express. These have been joined by the just opened Ramada Encore. By the end of the year the Hilton will open right next to the airports station and now this.

The company gives the expansion of the airport to 18 million passengers as a reason for the demand for more airport beds.

Find it hard to believe that the airport needs all these hotel rooms particularly with its 24 hour, 7 day a week public transport links which some lesser airports could only dream of..:confused:

Luton has never been a town blessed with enough hotel rooms.

Before the Premier Inn was built when the Brache restaurant was built, we had very very few modern hotels, especially close to the transport hub of the airport/parkway area.

London Luton seems to be an airport that's going places though. All good for our council taxes.

Just been looking at the council’s website. The proposed hotel location is opposite the Ibis and the Encore hotels on a parcel of land that was part of the mid term car park but isolated when the new dual carriageway into the airport was built.

General location here

http://www.eplan.luton.gov.uk/planne...28_60_01_1.PDF

Detail location here

http://www.eplan.luton.gov.uk/planne...28_16_01_1.PDF

Three pages of plans are here

PlanNet - Luton Borough Council

As always the website is shut down each night until the following day.

MNG A330F
 

Buster - I've been advised by a very reliable source that the new cargo stands can not take an A330 - the largest aircraft that will fit is an A300.

So looks as though there has been some marvellous planning by LLAO:ugh:

Whilst I expect it's a coincidence, I noted the MNG flight that normally arrives around midnight, trundling into that place in Essex this morning, albeit that it was an A300.

OLY1B

Freight Flights
 

For many years the over-sized freighters used any available space and that included the South stand. I have seen several 747's parked there including the Antonov AN-124.

Subsequetly last week the MNG A330 took off about 03.30 and a DHL arrived at 04.30. Maybe they won't be parking two wide bodies at the same time?

Surely there are wingspan issues because of the new pier? 52m max span?

According to FlightStats, the MNG aircraft is an Airbus A300-600 Freighter.

Don't think the new pier will stick out any further than the old pier. Ah what about the eastern apron as they are making it a little wider?

I had a look at Ocean Sky's new FBO area a couple of days ago. Still no concrete has been poured yet with not a great deal going on with the actual building.

Taxiway Delta
 

Maybe they will have to consider widening taxiway Delta by at least 20 - 30 feet and off-setting the taxiway line then that should eradicate the wingspan issue?

To be honest I don’t think there is an issue. On the existing plan there is a service road that passes the end of the pier. By the edge of this road is a broken line that runs parallel to Taxiway Delta. I would think this line indicates wing clearance. On the proposed layout with the wider apron this line is still in the same place tucked up against this service road which can be used as a reference point.

Even with the apron extended the apron still does not stick out as much as this service road.

Edit

The Boeing 777 has a wider wingspan of 60.9m so I can't see the airport turning away El-Al

Masterplan
 

The revised Masterplan shows 44 commercial aircraft stands, excluding Cargo (2) and FBO apron areas. This is 15 more than at present (ref 8.6). How many aircraft currently night-stop? Am I right in thinking there are 4 Ryanair, 4/5 Monarch, 3 Thomson, 16 EasyJet and 1 Wizz? That pretty well fills the available space and limits based airlines from adding extra units. But night-stoppers could increase by 50%, meaning up to 15 more departures at the peak time, plus any first-wave arrivals on short turn-rounds (Wizz have gradually increased these to 12/13, and will no doubt go further).

Will the revised infrastructure be able to cope with an increased throughput of over 50% to its peak? :eek:

Discuss. :8

I think the powers that be really are trying to squeeze every last penny out of everything last crevice on the current airport site. Its a good thing, especially with the opposition towards the aviation industry, but I'm sure the airport cannot grow any further after this masterplan without extending the current site significantly.

Are we going to say, 18m pax at LTN is the absolute limit? No more development, no more growth?

When was the new pier (gates 20-25) first planned? Not that long ago. Are we really going to say that's it until at least 2030/2050?

@LGS6753

I have never understood why Wizzair have done that. Seems really odd to have so many flights at the same time then nothing for hours. I know that Wizzair flights are not based in Luton so that's why they can, but I don't see why they choose to, surely it cant be nice for the staff, being so busy at one time and then no work for hours.

The only reason I see why they do it is because alot of the Luton routes are daily so want to operate them at the same times each day since pushing it back to the 2nd or 3rd return flight of the day for an aircraft may make departure times different each day depending on where they've flown to and from before going to Luton.

Danny,

The main problem, as far as I can see, is Luton's physical location. Whilst that is it's great strength in terms of catchment area, two very local factors are inhibiting growth:

1. The airport is operated under a 30-year concession by London Luton Airport Operations Ltd (LLAOL) but is owned by London Luton Airport Ltd (LLAL), which in turn is 100% owned by Luton Borough Council. The concession fee is partly a £3+ payment per passenger. The operator would probably be prepared to expand the airport to the south of the runway but if it did so, the focus of the operation would move out of LLAL's property, so they would be unable to collect their full concession fee. LLAL therefore have a powerful incentive to retain the airport within its current boundary, and as they control the concession, they are unlikely to award it to any company bent on depriving them of their income.

2. The southern and south-eastern perimeter of the airport is also the boundary between Luton Borough and Hertfordshire. If development land to the south of the airport was purchased for development, Hertfordshire would be the planning authority. They would be unlikely to grant planning permission to a facility that, in their view, causes nuisance (= noise) to their residents and that they have opposed for decades. The Hertfordshire County Transport Plan deliberately rejects improved road access in that part of the county, to strengthen their grounds for objection to any development.

The only way for this situation to be resolved to permit substantial expansion beyond the current airport perimeter would be either for the airport freehold to be sold by LBC to a private company which could fight Hertfordshire on national infrastructure grounds, or for government to determine that the airport is a national infrastructure asset and as such should be developed notwithstanding these local objections.

I personally can't see either of these scenarios occurring, so I suspect that development will be restricted to the current perimeter for at least the next twenty years.

Wizz use Luton to swap aircraft crews between aircraft so that the aircraft ends up at a Wizz maintenance base.