The police are meant to enforce the rules. They can be seen everyday strutting around in pairs carrying big guns and doing very little apart from chatting about what they did the night before. Money for nothing as every hour they have a change of shift for a well earned tea break. When the terminal was closed and even when there was only 3 flights a day LLAOL could not get the police to reduce their airport presence as the airport was picking up the wage bill.

Meanwhile LTNman gets accosted frequently by illegal taxi touts with not a copper in sight as the walk from the cosy terminal to the drop off area is just too far for the long arm of the law.

This is not wrong at all. It is one of my pet hates about travelling through LTN and there needs to be a clampdown. Tourists are being heavily ripped off, but Addison Lee are not helping the situation either.

I was maybe being a little unkind to the Old Bill, as they have taken action on occasions but they could do far more.

https://www.bedfordshire.police.uk/n...g-ban#b20a7484

Another case

https://www.phtm.co.uk/news/2618/pht...-taxi-business

I think they follow cars out of the barrier to avoid the £1 a minute parking charge for long stayers.

Luton recorded 297,000 pax in October -82%

The expectation for November is a drop of 95%.

I think November will be a w/o at all UK airports.

There are still holiday flights from Luton for those that want a holiday. I think the police should be a little bit more proactive at Luton and should be asking a few questions why people are travelling.

Not sure there are many passengers to ask judging by these images: https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2020...an-80-per-cent

The guy in the video is from LLAOL who are the airport operator. He has an accent, as he is Spanish, as is the largest LLAOL shareholder Aena who runs the show. Aena are the worlds largest airport operator so maybe he should be asking the Spanish government for financial help seeing it was the Spanish government that privatised the company a few years ago.

Also it hasn't stopped LLAOL spending money on planning applications and consultations with reports for airport expansion so they are not as hard up as they make out. Clearly it is a tragedy for those low paid workers who have been laid off or sacked but I have little sympathy with Aena.

As for the other 49% shareholder, they are subject to a takeover bid so clearly there is plenty of money there as well.

RYR operating flights to Tenerife & Malta, probably thinking cheaper to run the flights rather than refund?
Why do you think Police should be involved, next it will be roadblocks on M5 questioning why people go to Cornwall? Should be questioning more what it happening in Luton town itself!

The move by Blue Air to LHR seems to be part of a wider change of focus. They're moving their Paris flights from Beauvais to CDG, according to routes online.

The current ban of leaving the country for leisure is draconian, and more reminiscent of East Germany than the United Kingdom. By all means put strict, and monitored conditions on those who return, but leaving the UK the onus should be upon the destination country to decide how to handle potential infections from abroad.

Pretty nonsense stuff really...

Not condoning travel ex UK in a National Health Emergency at all but what would happen to the many passengers who may well be denied entry into the destination country then under those proposals?

The onus is on the UK & populous to handle it`s own Lockdown Emergency within its own borders & not to export it & for everyone to act responsibly surely.

So you are quite happy for leisure returnees then to be liabilities of the UK taxpayer & drain too very limited resources to monitor them after irresponsible travel.

Did you ever travel to East Germany?

The police are meant to be enforcing Covid regulations. The airport has its own dedicated police team who just work at the airport even when there were no passengers. With very few passengers travelling it would not take much of an effort to ask passengers why they are travelling and would give them something to do.

As for roadblocks, the police set them up on Sunday mornings on the Airport approach road to do car insurance and car tax checks as well as other checks on the drivers. Is that justified or part of a police state?

To answer your last point first; yes, in 1989.

Did I suggest that the UK taxpayer paid for the quarantine? No. That should be the responsibility of the traveller.

Then perhaps you should be aware of course that using rhetoric comparing the UK with East Germany in denying travel for jollies over a limited period to aid attempts to quell a virus which is perceived to be out of control is plain daft quite honestly.

Back to the assumption again that flights to sun destinations only carry holidaymakers! I'm sure there will be some rule breakers but like I said not many. There were a grand total of 75 passengers between both the Tenerife and Malta departures today - and only 500 passengers across all flights.

I just can't buy the argument that it is cheaper to operate a flight than pay for refunds, but happy to be corrected if anyone produce the evidence/figures to support this opinion.

Also to a point raised earlier about the impact on low paid workers, it should be pointed out that there are also plenty of well paid back office staff, including company directors, managers, pilots, engineers, marketing, finance, operations, project managers, analysts, fire fighters etc etc that have also been furloughed, taken a pay cut or been made redundant from almost every company based at the airport.

You can argue the rights or wrongs of the airport's priorities but ultimately any money saved by not running their consultation is frankly a drop in the ocean and would not make any material difference to the balance sheet.

If enough seats are sold and no one turns up then the flight is still profitable. The airlines then make even more money out of a passenger that fails to turn up, as they keep the airport passenger and handling charges and the government passenger tax that was part of the ticket price.

It's getting really quiet now. Yesterday saw no EZY, and just half a dozen each Wizz and Ryanair flights.

Saw this article and remembered this thread. Article is behind paywall, but gist is that the law has been poorly drafted and therefore in the view of a top barrister is total nonsense and unenforceable and any prosecutions wouldn't succeed. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/c...-human-rights/

The airport will be hemorrhaging cash at an incredible rate. I hope the owner of the airport has deep pockets, or it's tax payers do!

Buster there is one tiny caveat more or less everybody is in the same perilous position. Just to add to the paltry passenger numbers for this month, two TUI Boeing 737 charters f/t Istanbul and a German Airways E190 f/t Istanbul all connected with Formula 1. Plus a German Airways E190 from Copenhagen with the Icelandic Football team.

6 inbound and 6 outbound today.....wow !!!!

This is countrywide, all UK airports are in dire financial straights. Cant see politicians at a National or local level will actually allow an airport to go under though, guess it just depends how much cash they can afford to keep throwing at it. Even if this so called super vaccine works, we are still looking at a minimum 6 months before any real increase in travel is likely and sadly I think the big boys like LHR and MAN will be first in the queue

EL-AL applied for 10 additional weekly summer slots and didn't get a single one. If any new airline wanted to come to Luton in the summer they will be turned away as only DHL were successful.

Also despite the lockdown Luton Covid 19 cases have increased by 1071 to 2067 in just a week. Lockdown what lockdown as something is going wrong. It is going to be a bleak Christmas for the airport I would imagine if this is the national trend.

This seems very strange unless WZZ and EZY are planning a return to their 2019 programmes for 2021. I can't help wondering if they are "planning" to do that in order to keep competitors out (for example, both fly to TLV and would be affected by the El Al application).

Case numbers have increased nationally since the current lockdown started. I think that's because there is a lag between lockdown starting and its effects coming through in terms of number of infections.

Is this in addition to the strange lease of slots to WZZ in S20 whilst planning to startup STN ops again?

Ryanair, Wizz and Easyjet all applied for extra summer 2021 slots and all were refused. Maybe the applications were to block rivals who didn’t succeed anyway.

LTNman, where are you getting your Covid figures for Luton from?
That is coming out at 142 per day and l know the figures for Luton are bad, but l have not seen any day where it has reached 140.
The UK Gov Covid web site shows 646 cases for the last 7 days provided on the 17th Nov.

There are just 3 departures today, which are all Wizz

I am taking part in a study where just under 4.5m people enter their heath status everyday and confirm whether they have been tested and what the result was. Anyone showing symptoms is asked detailed questions followed by more detailed sub questions. Everyone should join to increase the daily database but it is already considered to be highly accurate and in near real time. Just follow the link.

https://covid.joinzoe.com.
Luton
https://i.imgur.com/OYzWfws.jpg
National trend
https://i.imgur.com/jXkpCKS.jpg

LTNman, thank you for your explanation, but you should have stated that they were estimated figures and not accurate official figures.
Which ever way that you look at it, we do have a problem in some areas of Luton.

In a statement in the face of large opposition to expansion of the airport Luton Council has said any proposal/development to 19m pa will require a Development Consent Order which will be determined by The Secretary of State _it will not be decided by Luton Borough Council.

Bim is still on the case...

The 19m application will be decided by the Council because it can be. It will be approved by the Council because they own the airport. The application has been merged with the application to increase aircraft noise above legally agreed limits, which were breached in previous year until they got caught out, because they can. The application is being fronted by the airport concessionaire London Luton Airport Operations ltd who are the Council’s stooges.

The DCO to government is being put forward by the airport owner LLAL, which is 100% owned by the council. All three are as thick as thieves and in my opinion inherently dishonest.

Nope...not what I read.

I would suggest that what you have read is wrong. The council don’t care about widespread opposition, as they have form in voting any and every application through that is airport related.

A few months ago Bim, who is a MP, said the expansion application to 32m had been dropped. He was soon educated, as it was just a freeze on current spending plans like for a new apron. Maybe he needs further educating if the suggestion came from him?

As I said the three stooges are fundamentally dishonest. The report is about 19m but the Council spokesman refers to the 32m application to muddy the water and to deflect the complaints. There is no DCO for 19m.

https://www.hertsad.co.uk/news/luton...sion-1-6936186

Larger an noisier A321NEO planes, when compared to what, A320CEOs they are replacing?
Bet joe public is itching to get out for a jolly to Benidorm & Ibiza asap but I buy Tesco Vegan sausages so I'm doing my bit!

The argument being put forward is that the A321NEO being heavier produces more noise than existing Luton aircraft. Those putting forward the claims actually know their subject. Watching A321Neo’s taking off from my front garden last year they are certainly no quieter than the departures either side of them but it is hard to tell if they are noisier. It should be noted though that the application for 19m includes increasing the airports noise footprint.

I can't keep up with these opposition groups. They criticise the council for giving themselves planning permission and suggest a conflict of interest, but now they say the current planning rules were 'democratically agreed'. Surely it can't be both?

Airbus NEO engines produce a distinctive noise on spool-up for take-off (and start-up). Overall, the engines are quieter than the previous generation but the new noises are noticeable!