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.

There is still the area in the short term car park where the council plan showed a new apron and another 5 stands. The new joint master plan does not have this apron. Both plans show a new multi-story car park in the same location to each other with the joint master plan stating that it will only be built when needed. Maybe it will be needed if they put an apron on part of the car park some time in the future.

That is not quite true. While part of the county boundary runs along the southern airport fence there is a large chunk of land around Someries that is part of Luton as the county boundary turns south east away from the airport. If measured the other way the land extends to the front of the new terminal.


I wouldn’t get to fixed on county boundary’s as these can be moved. Once upon a time the county boundary ran along the start of the runway at the 26 end. The ILS and airport fence was in Herts but this was changed years ago. If you look at an OS map you can see how the relatively straight line of the border now goes around the airport and not through it.


http://imageshack.us/a/img703/1223/boundary.png

God, what a busy little airport we were again today, would those nasty A&B liners go somewhere else so the VVIPs can park somewhere!!!

Does the Master plan cater for 50% growth across all airport users? At this rate the additional 15 stands will be taken up by Global's Legacy's & Gulfstream's alone!

No it doesn't and it looks to me that Biz jets will be squeezed. Signature will end up with a smaller apron than it has today. No plans and nowhere to expand Harrods. Maybe RSS Enterprises will end up with more apron as it only rents one or two stands on the South Apron at present.

It might be the case that initially biz jets will just overspill back onto stands 16 and 17 as not all stands will be needed for passenger aircraft until maybe a few years’ time but the difference will be that instead of Signature picking up the income from parked aircraft the money will go the airport providing the biz jet owners are prepared to pay the rates. One of the big moans at Monarch was the cost of parking aircraft that was in for maintenance as parking charges apply after 2 hours.

While Luton piles biz jets in nose to tail TAG aviation at Farnborough has no such problems. If they ever get permission to expand their opening hours you can see where many aircraft that would have liked to use Luton will end up.

If they ever get permission to expand their opening hours you can see where many aircraft that would have liked to use Luton will end up.

Its very unlikely Farnboro' will be allowed night movements in the short term. When the current phased increase in movements to 50,000 by 2019 was agreed to on appeal, the noise considerations based on the restricted opening hours formed part of that agreement.

Its not uncommon to see Farnboro' based aircraft at LTN at weekends and evenings because of this:ok::ok:

LTNman, amazingly at times Farnborough also has issues with a lack of parking available.

Worth reading the master plan for Farnborough then. They want to go from 28,000 movements to 50,000 movement but say the airfield can handle 100,000 movements with no major changes to its infrastructure.

http://www.tagaviation.com/LinkClick...g0%3d&tabid=60

Farnborough will increase over the years, it has the space but the locals will stop the full plans.
Luton picks up quite a few based aircraft as it does from City at weekends.

Lost oppertunity?

Was Luton represented at the Route Development conference in Abu Dhabi this week?

Worth reading the master plan for Farnborough then. They want to go from 28,000 movements to 50,000 movement but say the airfield can handle 100,000 movements with no major changes to its infrastructure.

50,000 annual movements has already been approved but will not be reached until 2019 as the increases are being phased year by year until then.

Plenty of very powerful NIMBY's around Farnboro' will ensure night movements won't happen there:=

New report states that after Heathrow Luton is the best location for a 4 runway airport.

The Press Association: UK needs four-runway airport: study

Heart failure at LADACAN !!!

I heard on the radio this morning that Luton should extend its runway! Why spend up to 80 Billion pounds on a new airport when for a few hundred million pounds Luton could easily alleviate Heathrow congestion!

Both LADICAN and HALE members must be 'imploding' on the news.

This is the full document:

http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/ima...%20quieter.pdf

Makes interesting reading - far too sensible for the likes of LADACAN and politicians!

Luton 2002 Masterplan expanded/modified to 4 runway Airport.Who has the money to carryout this project ?

Interesting reading indeed.

£20bn cost and the closure of Stansted with appropriate financial compensation. Can't see that happening and would it really solve the problem.

Highlights what we already really know.
LTNs catchment area,ease of access and STNs poor geographical location.
Wonder what this might do for STNs price tag in the immediate future.
Guess MAG have been asking these questions already but will they just persist( with Ryanair help of course)in getting passengers to use STN by lowering costs ?

Nice that outsiders have seen the potential at LTN which we have been talking about for ages!

With Luton Airport being on top of a hill it is non-runner for such a plan. Would have to move county boundary again as Herts is south and would love to get a piece of the pie.
Let Luton expand within its limits and live in peace with its Essex neighbour.
The best oppertunity was lost in the 70s with a plan in Bucks. UK plc will suffer in long run.

Come on Pabely lets have some enthusiasm...we have got used to life on the hill....was a problem many moons ago pre cat3 ILS days. Its not beyond mans capability to move a bit of earth around to fill a few holes and make a level playing field (not talking about Kenilworth Rd) But guess you are right probably will never happen, at least in my life time.

In China or Middle East it would be possible but in blighty it will not, move such amounts of earth to get a structred hub, all these trips by lorries & diggers, the greens would have a field day!
I was suprised at St. Pancras International when last visited, we can do it if the will is there but railway hubs are very different from airport hubs (but should they be so?).