Installing traffic lights with traditional pedestrian crossings in the drop off zone has to be amongst the most stupid ideas the airport has had. I completely agree with LTNman that this will end in tears. It gives me no pleasure to say it, but it will be a complete disaster. The current system works mainly because traffic does not have to give way to pedestrians so there is a constant flow. I don't know why they didn't try to replicate that in the new zone. The distance to the pay barriers also provides a buffer against backlog there - this will also be lost.

The current system could be improved even further with a simple number plate reader and some simple flow rate logic. The number plate reader would be used to direct the first 15 cars to the farthest zone first, next 15 to next zone zone and so on. This would reduce the number of cars having to give way to other cars arriving and going to the farthest zones - which happens when the closest zones are filled up first. Even if half of drivers ignored the direction it would still be an improvement.

Well that's timely https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2019...to-next-stage/

Complete rubbish that this is a consultation where the public have any input. Their claim of creating 16,000 jobs is bull and the jobs that will be created will be low paid work in the main on shift patterns no one wants to work.

Anyone knowing all the facts will know that the airport own land that has had planning permission for a business park for 20 years but instead of creating 1000’s of 9 to 5 jobs they want to use the land to build a car park. No mention of that in their statements.

FlyBosnia reported to be having a few issues...having a little difficulty with the fees at their home base airport, Sarajevo, and thinking of moving operations to either Mostar or Tuzla

What 9-5 jobs, there is loads of office space around the town waiting for these employees? It is the support jobs which will come which will attract more companies to the area and thus generate these such jobs. You don't think those high tech well paid jobs between the M4 & M40 were attracted by the parks around Windsor!

Wizzair have always had issues at high cost Sarajevo, Tuzla will put them in line of fire with Wizzair but Mostar has no direct London route

Luton is no Heathrow. Companies are not going to relocate to Luton so their employees can fly to Ibiza for a business trip. A look around the terminal will find few suits with the majority of passengers being Eastern Europeans. Also suggest you google Luton Airport jobs and see what is on offer. Luton is great for part time or zero hour work on minimum wage rates but quality jobs will be hard to find. Finally there are very few workers who look forward to 24/7 shift pattens which is one reason why there is a high turnover of staff.

Sorry to be negative about Luton but that might be the case - but the Oxford Cambridge Arc will provide Luton with catchment. Stansted perhaps will take at the eastern end but the government wants many new homes between Bedford and Milton Keynes.

However on the other hand one could argue that with climate change air travel may have peaked and ask whether London needs more capacity.

Unverified reports on the web that load factor has been very disappointing. However the route started on 24-Sep, ie only 3 weeks ago, so need to wait a while before reliable stats are published

A few years ago there were regular scheduled flights to Mostar from Rome and with Mistral Air on a 737 - I think it was 2x weekly in summer. Even with all the Catholic pilgrims, this route didn't get that many pax outside peak pilgrimage periods - I suspect most passengers travelled on air charters or travelled, at least in part, by land - eg from Dubrovnik or Split

Yes, the Catholic population in the UK has increased in the last 20 years, but the numbers are nothing like those in Italy. Tangney Tours are a UK travel agency who are heavily involved in taking Catholics on pilgrimages are focussed primarily on Lourdes. They offer Medjugorje but it's a long way down the list of top destinationd

The Bosnian diaspora in Europe is centred on Germany, Austria and various countries in the western Balkans. The UK is unlikely to see a large amount of VFR traffic to Bosnia (at least at profitable air fares) as Wizz found out in 2017

The truth is that airlines have not exactly been queuing up to fly out of Luton. Also the airport has found no new markets since the opening up of Eastern Europe apart from Israel. That could all change with the Dart but the airport has a long history of promising much but building cheap. Would a second terminal have air bridges for example?

LTNman - playing devil's advocate, are there any particular markets that you think LTN should be targetting ?
Note to those who come up with ideas - please be realistic ! :-)

DJ6 -

I'll try to be realistic.
Whenever I go to Gatwick in summer, I see lots of flights to Greek islands not served from Luton. If there is demand from Gatwick, surely there is from Luton, although overall capacity will be limited.
I'm also struck by the paucity of flights to secondary holiday areas - Morocco, the Azores, Porto Santo, Egypt. All are within operational range, but the market must be limited to these places.
It's interesting that Wizzair have opened a number of Scandinavian routes. Time will tell as to the success of these, but if these can work, perhaps others can too.

TUI has almost pulled Luton from its programme so the question is why? Delays at Luton are similar to Gatwick so there are other reasons like a lack of demand. Charter flights showed another drop from 429,504 in 2017 to 358,811 for 2018, which is around 10% of what Luton has had in the past. 19 new routes came in 2017 and 33 in 2018 but all those routes came from Luton’s existing airlines with no new airlines coming to Luton despite the efforts of a dedicated marketing team which is now being cut back.

As I said before the Dart will be a game changer but new markets are not in Europe but further afield and Luton has a success rate of zero in those markets.

Personally I don’t support expanding the airport. There always has to be a balance between those living under flight paths or living close to the airport and those that demand air travel as long as the aircraft don’t fly over their homes.

From a selfish point of view it is good to see Southend starting to do well. They might be a smaller player but they are getting their passengers from somewhere and it might help contain Luton’s aspersions.

Having used both LGW and LTN extensively over the last year, I can definitely say delays are not the same between both airports, although that said I think FR do a far better job in scheduling than EZY; one captain of the latter once described the schedule as "optimistic" - the former do seem to pad out back at base.

LGW squeeze every second out of their runway and fair play to the controllers who manage this - but one small delay has potentially long knock on delays. In comparison, it's rare to even have to go into a hold at LTN. If LTN goes up to 30m+ a year, delays will increase.

You can't do the third trip of the day, in the summer season on simply 40 minute T/As or less. It doesn't work - one small delay knocks on for the rest of the day. Add in a stormy day with reduced flow rate into London TMA and aircraft just can't get in without having 1-2 hour delays if you miss the slot even by a few minutes. EZY at LGW must have cancelled 1000s of flights over this summer.

FlyBosnia now reducing flights on Luton-Sarajevo from 3x weekly to 2x weekly

Construction update
 

A temporary entrance to the new drop off area is being created by using the last drop off lane of the old zone as an access route.
https://i.imgur.com/2nMqgnJ.jpg

It seems the new drop off area will have 4 sets of traffic lights all at one end and not 5. I assume these will guard all the pedestrian crossings so one less is being put in compared to published plans. Each set of lights has a pedestrian controlled button to change the lights to red.
https://i.imgur.com/j0JMBnb.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/VQ29dst.jpg

At the other end 8 pay barriers have been installed but one set is outside the confines of the building. This is the same number as now but the new arrangement does not have a buffer zone between the drop off area and the pay zone.
https://i.imgur.com/cK6V84g.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/aN7I3sQ.jpg

The Dart maintenance area has had its floor laid and has had its wall support jacks removed.
https://i.imgur.com/1PWF5Qu.jpg

Work has started on realigning the dual carriageway inside the CTA so it passes over the Dart tunnel.
https://i.imgur.com/NAdYTwM.jpg

• Pedestrian controlled crossings
• No buffer zone before pay
• One must hope for a good cross breeze as the diesel and petrol fumes could build up rapidly, especially when there is a backlog to get through and out the pay barrier

Well, I'm sure they know what they are doing.