I was looking at this earlier - it must've done 15-20 circuits over North Herts! I did think at the time, they must have been very low on fuel.

Three of the aircraft that landed just before the 7:30 closure are trapped on Taxiway Alpha 3 hours after landing. As far as I am aware the passengers are still on board.

Not sure if this is because of a lack of stands as the first wave of easyjet did not depart so the first 2 landing aircraft made it to the vacated Wizz stands only.
https://i.imgur.com/zTih1wP.jpg

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

Turned out nice again!

Same happening at Stansted read on Twitter people are stuck on taxiways from early arriving flights and being told it’s unsafe to get busses to them sounds strange not saying anything against Luton as I’m not familiar with operations but Stansted normally deals quite well with snow going by past years

I would say I good 6 inches of snow has landed at Luton.

Looks like easyJet have cancelled all departures until 1625 local. More snow forecast for the rest of the day and tomorrow morning.

Some of those Wizz passengers are being deplanned now. Might be even more planes parked up on Taxiway Alpha than I first thought.

Irrespective of what's going on at LTN and STN today, there are problems at some of the destinations as well e.g. AMS and GVA have both had closures today

TUI's ACE departure got away after a four hour delay and nearly 2000 litres of de-icing fluid!:eek:

Pretty severe conditions this morning.....Arriving Wizz aircraft that were trapped on taxiways were getting told by their handling agent that steps were unsafe to use and it was the airports responsibly to clear them!

4 more Wizz have waved goodbye to LTN on their diversion to Doncaster !!

Luton still full so can't accept any more a/c until some leave, hence the recent diversions.

Easy cancellations have clogged up the system then !!!!

You got it with Taxiway Alpha being used as stands for the Wizz arrivals.

If FR24 is to be believed there are 5 parked on Bravo Taxiway currently !!

Lucky it has been extended. The aircraft are all running engines and are not shut down.

https://i.imgur.com/3NaS3xe.jpg

Good to see that the Multi Storey still stands after the weight of the snow.

Back 'in the day', there were plenty of firemen, baggage and security to help clear an airport handling significantly less movements. The 'low cost era' must be a challenge to get enough staff in to mount an attack on the snow?

Luton Statistics Jan-Nov 2017
 

Amsterdam - 714,135
Budapest - 532,315
Bucharest - 519,026
Barcelona - 468,476
Warsaw - 408,733
Tel Aviv - 381,810
Dublin - 328,642
Malaga - 318,724
Faro - 311,595
Belfast - 309,468
Cluj-Napoca - 301,714
Katowice - 289,478
Palma de Mallorca - 283,867
Edinburgh - 282,061
Gdansk - 276,239
Sofia - 265,277
Paris - 262,511
Geneva - 257,256
Copenhagen - 255,842
Alicante - 250,360

Source: LLA

Looks like BlueAir have been pulling out all the stops to keep the show on the road.

The issue right into last night was a lack of available stands not helped by the extreme time it was taking to de-ice easyjet aircraft once they started to operate again. The initial wait was over 6 hours for a stand but even late into the evening it was still around 2 hours.

Many aircraft were diverted away from Luton due to a lack of places to hold the aircraft once they had landed.

Apparently the terminal was hell on Earth.

I think there will be lots of posts later today and it won't be about the weather.:oh::oh::oh:

Some things were operating normally then...

The airport has announced plans to double the size of Luton airport to between 36 and 38 million passengers and up to 240,000 aircraft movements.

It's 11th December not April Fools Day......hmmm must read this LTNman

Whilst looking for reports on the news posted by LTNman above, I found an article on the second MSCP saying construction is planned to start in June

The news has been under wraps until the official announcement and is now being reported on local radio from 10am.

With regards to the new car park, it seems a long wait until it is started which must push back the DART project.

I can confirm that 3 Counties Radio ran a headline stating exactly what LTNman has written earlier today. Announcement to be made formally soon.

In other news.....

Luton is proving to have been a valuable investment for AENA
The one exception is London Luton Airport, north of London. In Aug-2013 Abertis sold its 90% stake in the operating concession on Luton Airport, held through the TBI holding company, to a consortium formed by AENA and the private equity arm of the French insurance group AXA. AENA had previously held 10% of the equity and it now holds 51% of the consortium, and AXA Private Equity, 49%. The deal was worth EUR502 million (USD667 million) for Britain’s fifth busiest airport.

AENA said at the time that it aimed to “substantially build up London Luton…”, and that has been the case. With 18.5% passenger traffic growth in 2016, to 14.5 million, and 10.5% in Jan to Sep-2017, Luton is the fastest growing of those top five airports and one of the fastest growing of any primary UK airport in 2017. Capacity is being increased to handle 18 million ppa by 2020, and a GBP200 million mass passenger transit system should be operational by spring 2021. This will connect the rail station, which will receive an enhanced service network from London and areas to the south of the capital, directly into the terminal.

AENA reports that revenues at London Luton Airport increased by 12% year-on-year in the nine months to Sep-2017. Aeronautical revenues increased by 9.2%, while commercial revenue increased by 14.5%, highlighting a parking revenue increase of 14.8%.

In the first nine months of 2017, AENA’s infrastructure investment programme amounted to EUR246.4 million, including EUR39.7 million invested at Luton Airport. The main investments in the network of airports in Spain have been focused on security and improvements in maintenance.

That's the article :cool:

mmmmm....yes very good & not pouring cold water..(quite appropriate with the w/x tho) the article being alluded to is described in the headline as a "vision" & is just an appropriate response to the Government`s request for proposals toward the new framework policy for the UK.
Max use of the single R/W but still overall aspirational.
Figures first mentioned above nearer the year 2050 within this vision described.

Luton's present expansion was meant to be dated 2026 for completion but it came forward 6 years due to demand.

Doubling capacity means another terminal and another 35 to 40 stands. Not easy to achieve and can't be done within the airport boundary.

a lot of green belt around it, just a case of how many local you intend to cheese off by buying them up. Space isn't totally impossible, but realistically if they need to find 35-40 stands, a terminal, parking & access, maybe some extra hangars too, how much would they need?

The vision I am perusing whilst mentioning use only of the existing R/W & with no R/W extension cleverly does not mention expanding beyond the existing boundaries either.
My observation is the most appropriate land & to the East is in Hertfordshire & without rehearsing again that debate that ain`t never gonna happen.
Still as you said LTNman will probably all produce lots of postings today so have some fun.

To the east, the land is undulating, but to the south there is a fairly flat area of farmland, which happens to be in Hertfordshire.

If land south of the runway was to be used, a whole new infrastructure would be needed - access, terminal capacity, stands, etc.

If the existing boundaries remain, the CTA will become even more congested without some very clever planning (which has not been in evidence for the last 50 years...)

Draft Masterplan
 

From the PDF link at the bottom of the above website.

So they tell the residents that they want to build a business park on their local park but later on after putting in a dual carriageway first they actually build a new terminal and a bunch of new stands on the park that they now lease.

Really don't see how they can make best use of the runway unless the taxiway's go to the end of the runway and the creation of rapid exit taxiway's. As much as i'm all for the airport expanding, it's typical Luton to not look far ahead into the future before building. I doubt there's time now for them to reconsider expanding the new 26 taxiway to the very end now.

The only place to expand is to the south of the runway. In order to deliver 50 movements you need, as LDNLTN states, comprehensive and non lo-cost taxiways!

If I was to take a wild guess, all this soft language about exploring the capacity of other landholdings will eventually look something like this.

https://image.ibb.co/kpQx4b/Luton_Rumours.png

More soft language here:
"Our intention is to develop the New Century Park site, which forms the eastern end of the Luton Airport Enterprise Zone, to create new business opportunities and unlock thousands of new jobs."
Nothing prevents these new business opportunities and thousands of jobs from being a terminal.

Charleroi is a good example of a terminal being built within a business park:
https://image.ibb.co/j1BUjb/Screen_S...t_00_30_49.png

There had previously been rumours that the Luton mass rapid transit had some provision to be extended but it makes more sense now.

Easyjet
 

New routes from Luton

Palermo
Reus
Genoa
Thessaloniki

Also
Dalaman