The EU may no longer have influence over Gatwick.... but what would Gatwick management and shareholders want ? While they may be reluctant to be too nasty to Easyjet/BA/Virgin as long standing customers, they will also be heavily focused on airlines which will operate flights and bringing in revenues. I suppose in theory BA/Easyjet could pay a pile of cash to Gatwick in lieu of airport usage fees, but this might contravene (or be seen to contravene) various rules against bribery / corruption

Use or lose. If the airlines are reluctant to to get Gatwick back on its feet then step aside.

Be careful about wishing Wizzair opens a 20 aircraft base - Luton might end up shrinking...

Those “damaging EU regulations” are what allowed Luton and most other airports to flourish in the first place so you really should be careful what you wish for

Free markets not stifling regulations. If Luton loses part of its Wizz operation to Gatwick then so be it but Wizz has hinted in the article that while Eastern Europeans are not fussy where they land Brits prefer Gatwick so there would be two different markets Wizz would target.

Can't remember if it has been reported before, but Wizzair are stopping seasonal Split route early in mid-september and employing that aircraft to add capacity to Portugal.

A couple of weeks ago the Council wanted to discuss £83m of Council loans to their airport company LLAL to stave off bankruptcy in closed session. This from a Council that claims it is open and transparent. The opposition group voted the closed session down and wanted the meeting held in public, as airport directors, who also sit on the scrutiny committee could not vote. The decision was deferred so the ruling group brought in zombie councillors to replace those directors who could not vote. It was then voted through that the meeting would be held in secret.

This Council has much to hide, all of the meetings of London Luton Airport Ltd, which is made up of councillor directors are held in secret even though it is just a committee of the Council. Many of Luton’s councillors from the ruling party come across as being uneducated and just do as they are told. The power is actually held by a handful of people who are not even councillors fronted by a Council leader that lost the plot years ago.


https://www.lutontoday.co.uk/news/po...rivate-2958505

I didn’t realise directors of LLAL were actually councillors directly appointed to the board (although I suppose this makes sense as it’s council owned). One of which I know for a fact has absolutely zero experience in aviation or being on a BoD. Is it too much to ask to have a BoD that actually has industry experience?

It is only in the last few months after a complaint was made about conflicts of interest that airport directors don’t vote on airport matters at other meetings. In February the directors helped vote down a proposal that the airport pays for a local parking scheme needed due to holidaymakers using local roads to park their cars. They no doubt agreed this policy at one of their secret meetings.

If you Google Local Government Investigations you will find that there are national bodies charged with investigating possible malfeasance. I suggest that you make them aware of your concerns.

Well it didn't take long did it.:ugh:
Health officials are trying to trace more than 200 Wizz Air passengers after authorities failed to alert the airline that eight travellers on a flight had tested positive for coronavirus, according to reports.
The Guardian reports that eight teenagers from Hampshire were diagnosed after flying to Luton with Wizz Air from Crete on August 25.

Depending on what time they landed they would have been in long queues for Border Force. One thing is for sure there would be no one enforcing the wearing of masks or social distancing at Luton but that would be the same as any airport.

https://i.imgur.com/fNgSkhJ.jpg

Co-Op for Lu2on!

With the greatest of respect I fail to see what a new shop at the bottom of a block of flats has to do with the airport.

You tell the marketing team of the project holders that, it's proximity to access to Parkway/DART does make location attractive.

I was going to do a Dart construction update today but nothing has fundamentally changed since the last two dated August 2nd and August 16th so nothing is worthy of a photo.

Work seems to be progressing very slowly and might be down to the emergency cash injection the project needs, which is due to a £18m overspend, as the council has yet to cough up.

Looking at the time-line of completion date targets, the build was meant to be finished in the first week of June. The installation of the Dart equipment is meant to be finished at the end of this month when train testing is meant to begin for an April 2021 opening. That is clearly not going to happen so I am guessing the project is at least 6 months behind schedule and maybe more.

Once it is open will there be enough income to clear the £243 debt and its day to day running costs? At the moment the shuttle bus operation is run by Thameslink at no cost to LLAL or the Council. The prospect is that the Dart will actually have to be subsidised by the Council taxpayers who will never use it and who are already being hammered by airport loses and airport debts.

I

Looking at SunExpress website, they seem to have a short series of weekly flights this December/January to Izmir with connections to other locations in Turkey.

July stats

https://www.london-luton.co.uk/Londo...1028fc692a.pdf

Luton will be either the second or third busiest airport in the U.K. for passenger volumes for July depending on the Stansted figures. Strange times we live in.

Update. Stansted 468,318 July, 10,000 more than Luton

I wonder how the ATMs compare vs STN, might give a insight of average load factor.

Well I never........

https://www.internationalairportrevi...accreditation/

Well done to the Airport Management at Luton for doing the best they can to make flying safer.

At the end of the day Buster it is up to individuals to look after themselves because you can not count on others to look out for you or me. However the mitigating measures brought in by the airport is identical to those of my employer which suggests LLA has gone further than most employers / organisations to protect people who visit their premises.

Just shows what a load of codswallop the award is then. I won't bore the masses here with a list of what is wrong but I doubt anyone has been here to examine the airport. If they have they were given a very selective tour at a very quiet time of day. More of a case of a questionnaire with multi choice answers. Restaurants do seem to conform to regulations though. This is not a knock at Luton as airports have not been designed with social distancing in mind so in many areas it is just not possible.

So Luton's busiest routes are Lisbon & Porto currently, if Portugal keeps this up it will be like the Winter Geneva & Zurich used to be many years ago!
I remember sitting waiting for my flight one year thinking that is almost an hourly shuttle, on check FR24 showed 16 flights that day!

The airport managed it on the day it was inspected, taking to staff in the Tinminal, you get a completely different view about how secure the place is.

So there was a physical check, rather than just a paper assessment?

No idea but the accreditation must be lax when Luton got it if and when the following areas were examined. This award is more about the processes put in place rather than the practicalities of using it.


Screens have been put up for the check-in desks to protect staff but when vast areas of check-in desks can be unused why is there side by side check-in of passengers?

The airport would have paid for this just like they paid £2000 per car park for Park Mark accreditation for its car parks. They were claiming Park Mark for their priority parking when open waste ground was being used for the storage of passengers cars before the gateway bridge was built opposite the Ibis. Maybe it was just an oversight but it did undermine the integrity of the scheme when half the site was not even fenced.

Wizz Air starting London Luton to Catania from 22 October 2020 with 2x weekly flights

Good Grief article from Hertfordshire Mercury about residents of Breachwood Green and Luton Airport.
Terminals, Runways, specific Gatwick flights now using Luton, at least they get the fact right about how long there has been an airport.
Must have short memories not remembering the 1-11s and 737-200s !

Also incorrect was the statement that they are 3.6 miles from the airport. More like one mile from the end of the runway.

Normal BS from Andy Malcolm

I think the people of Breachwood Green would disagree.

As well as the chairman of Luton Airport he is also the finance portfolio holder for the Council as well as a Councillor. All very handy when you want to give yourself an additional £83m loan, which will now be approved at a secret meeting because the ruling party are too ashamed and embarrassed to hold it in public.

At the same time the residents of Luton, who the airport claim to be entirely focusing on by supporting and improving people’s lives, are being hammered by Council cutbacks due to its airport and its massive borrowings that were made under Andy Malcolm’s joint watch.

You need to drag the MP into this, and the national press .

Well you can’t make this up but the MP who is the MP that covers the airport is also a Councillor for the ruling party in Luton. Yes she has two jobs so being a MP gives her lots of free time to be a Councillor as well.

When it comes to the airport there is scandal after scandal. One of the best ones involved the planning committee. After taking control of the 75 acre local park that adjoins the airport without even a consultation. The airport (LLAL) puts in a planning application to the Council (remember that the airport is the Council) to build the Terminal 2 access road on the pretence it was for a business park.

One of the Councillors who voted in favour of the application sits on a management committee of a company that is also a registered charity. Nothing wrong in that except that company had received over £820,000 in grants from LLAL.

Well members of the community kicked off, there was a stink in the papers with this “clown” publishing a statement that was clearly written by the Council on his behalf saying he had done nothing wrong. The claim was that he had broken Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and the council’s code of conduct by taking part and voting on the planning application.

The Council was obliged to convene a Standards Committee hearing that reviews the actions of Councillors. With his Councillor mates sitting on that committee there were no surprises he was cleared. It’s a bit like a court case before a jury and half the jury go drinking with the defendant once a week.

Oh and this hearing that was meant to be held in public was conducted without members of the public in attendance as the Council kept the hearing date a secret. Even those making the complaints and who wanted to attend knew nothing until weeks later which led to another complaint.

Wizz Air to launch London Luton - Bacau on 1 October 2020 instead of 29 October 2020 on Luton based aircraft. Initially 5x weekly flights before route moves to BCM base on 29 October and operates daily

Count down until Blue Air call it a day at Luton then.

Is this a result, better than some would have thought https://www.standard.co.uk/business/...-a4546681.html

A good result for Luton but how does the Council know for not only this financial year (2020/2021) but the financial year of 2021/2022, how much the Council needs to bail out the airport. I suspect some of that bailout money won’t be needed and will be secretly diverted. With LLAL refusing to publish minutes we will never know.

Passenger numbers at London Luton Airport (LLA) were down 56% last month compared to August 2019, with 820,000 travelling through the airport compared to 1.7m last year.



While the figures represent an improvement on July, they continue to show the impact that coronavirus is having on the aviation sector. Across the summer as a whole (June, July and August) the total number of passengers were down 75% compared to last year, as the pandemic continues to weigh on the sector.



LLA, along with the rest of the UK’s 20 biggest airports, recently wrote to the Prime Minister to warn that the economy faces “irreparable damage” unless there is action on implementing a testing regime for aviation.



Alberto Martin, CEO of LLA, said: “The summer period is the busiest time of year at LLA, and while I’m pleased to have welcomed more passengers during August, it’s a long way from our normal busy holiday period. We’ve seen an encouraging rise in seat sales in recent months, but we also need to be realistic about what the future holds. With summer drawing to a close, and with quarantine measures continuing to be imposed, urgent Government support for the sector will be vital to ensure that the crisis of the aviation sector does not worsen and the livelihoods of the thousands of people who rely on it are not jeopardised".



LLA is taking additional steps to ensure the safety of travellers and staff members. These measures include the installation of protective screens at customer service points, hand sanitiser stations throughout the airport and an enhanced cleaning and disinfection routine. LLA’s efforts in this area were recently recognised when it was awarded certification from the ACI Airport Health Accreditation programme. LLA is the first airport in the UK to be awarded certification, which means passengers can be sure that the health and safety measures introduced at the airport are industry best practice globally.

176 jobs at risk at Menzies after end of Furloughs

Is it just El-Al and Tui from the roster of airlines at Luton who have yet to return?

Vueling or was it Level, can’t remember what came first.
FlyBosnia went for good at some point. Was it pre corvid?

Menzies just handles Easyjet

Vueling then Level