Sun Express
 

Not sure if it's been mentioned but Sun Express (XQ) will start 2x weekly Luton to Antalya eff. 18JUN 2018

No sign of Izmir as yet for Summer '18

Expect a few Qatar Airways A320 flights over the next few days operating for the UK CAA instead of scheduled Monarch flights. NAP/ARN/AGP arrivals will be first ones tomorrow. Sad times for everyone involved.

Well it’s now official. I think it is a shame and I hope all the staff and passengers are well looked after.

Shocking:{ For me there has always been a Monarch at Luton. What has happened to their engineering side, has that be wound up? Then there is their apprentice school.

Monarch have two large hangars next to each other plus other smaller former aircraft hangars. Could Gulfstream move into these or is it too late now and the contracts have been signed? What will happen their HQ and is it big enough for easyjet if they wanted to move out of the CTA?

At least 9 departures due out today using 5 aircraft so this will make a dent in the airports passenger figures. Luton will have plenty of overnight stands now available.

MAEL is not in Administration and is still operating at this current time. Wether it'll be rebranded remains to be seen.

Most of their work at Luton was for Monarch. It can only mean bad news. So sad for all the staff.:(
I have put a photo on the History thread of Monarch in its heyday. http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...algia-127.html

Monarch
 

Incredbly sad to learn of Monarch’s collapse. They’ve been around as long as I have. I’ve got so many fond memories of watching their planes - the old 720’s and 1-11’s at Luton as a kid and having the pleasure of flying with them since. A long, proud history, I guess their demise was inevitable in the end but the airline industrry and in particular Luton Airport without Monarch just wont be the same :(

I once viewed some photos of me as a child with their Bristol Britannia’s in the background. Like you, I loved the 720b’s and one-ellevens but equally the 707-320 that operated from LTN I think around 1978?

Does anyone know if a book was in the ‘making’ into what would have been it’s 50th year of operations next year? I need to buy it!

Media circus at Monarch HQ while 4 aircraft are parked up including these 2 on the south stands.

https://i.imgur.com/N9PEgUX.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/O8hyoxI.jpg

Just pulled the stat out for Monarch for 2016. They were Luton's 4th largest airline in terms of movements with 4,587, which was 4.5% of all airline movements.

I presume easyJet will look to poach these slots?

Who knows, suddenly Gatwick has spare capacity, they could even move capacity out of Luton to fill Gatwick first.

That would be up to KPMG to get the best price I would have thought, assuming they are of value on the books. If not used for a period of time would they not just go back into a pool to be sold by the airport?

LTN and BHX will certainly be down next year now. Easy may well deploy more aircraft at LGW; LTN was to see at least a couple of A321 Neos I believe but may be not now. Remember that TUI will also base fewer aircraft next year too. I wonder if that might be reversed now- did Monarch carry many of their pax-or those of Thomas Cook

I thought Jet2 might have over-expanded but they and STN will probably be the overall winners.

I could see EasyJet Starting a LTN-GIB route from next year tbh.

I was surprised they never did after they took over GB Airways but the MON product from Luton was loyal and good then.

Gatwick is the prize with Luton and Stansted doing well out of a lack of capacity at Gatwick. How many Monarch aircraft were based there as I doubt their slots will remain unfilled for long.

Currently 9 parked up at Gatwick so likely to had at least 18 slot pairs a day.

9 parked up at Gatwick, 11 at Birmingham, 9 at Manchester & G-ZBAR on lease from Air Malta at Leeds.

Will anyone take over the ovda/eliat route. Was looking to go again in march. would be a shame to see it go. As it is a great shame that Monarch has gone

Possible. I think it's probably more likely STN will lose an airframe or two if they can pick up Gatwick slots. That's assuming EZY are allowed to bid for them, or aren't out bid by BA or Norweigen who want to ramp up long haul at Gatwick

EZY can probably always get STN slots, though it's unlikely FR, TOM or TCX will want to jump into LTN so I guess Wizz is the on,y airline likely to scoop up the slots. *if* ezy do get the bulk of Gatwick slots then it's conceivable LTN may lose an airframe for a time

I hope another airline comes in and replaces Monarch and the slots are not absorbed by the big existing carriers based at LTN... While I appreciate the airline had a far smaller presence at the airport, that compared to other carriers, I think the airport needs to try and continue to diversify its portfolio as much as possible, and try not to be so reliant on on the likes of easyJet and Wizz...

The only actual routes lost is Gibraltar, Dalaman (think TOM might operate it as a charter route) and Ovda, and just shows the competition Monarch were up against, and this is just at Luton! Will be good to see Gibraltar and Dalaman brought back, but not sure if Ovda brings much value?

Im not sure we'll see easyJet adding much additional frequency to the old overlapping routes, as this just dilutes the current fares on these routes and frequencies might only get added closer to the start of Summer 2018, if and when existing flights get booked up.

Im not too sure how realistic it is another carrier will expand or open a new base at Luton, would be great to see Vueling grow, but not too convinced of that either, as it has remained static for the past year or two.

I think 2016 was Luton’s year with 2017 and so far 2018 being Stansted’s years for new airlines particularly jet2.

With plenty of stand capacity now available with the demise of Monarch and with the new stands that are now complete there will be no rush to grab them in fear of missing the boat. Factor in the spare capacity that has come on tap at Gatwick, the push at Stansted for new business and it is unlikely Luton will see a rush of new carriers. Luton’s bottom place Which survey of 29% will not help either or it’s focus on just low cost carriers.

Might be the case that Signature could get back the use of stands 16-19 for overnight parking if they asked nicely until they are needed again.

Ovda
 

If a London-Ovda route returns, it will almost certainly be from Luton or not at all. Ovda / Israel is offering some hefty subsidies to airlines bringing in foreign tourists and Ryanair has made use of this in a big way. The only catch is that while routes like Bratislava-Ovda have had healthy load factors, Luton-Ovda has sometimes had quite mediocre load factors - not sure if there is enough demand for a 5h30 flight to a destination which is expensive in GBP terms

New
 

While I am sure ex-Monarch pilots and cabin crew are already on the ball looking for jobs, I saw this on LinkedIn and thought I'd post...

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m...003_114514.jpg

Wizz Air - Career Opportunities

Also BBC Three Counties Radio were reporting easyJet were holding recruitment days this coming Thursday and Friday.

Probably a very different culture and working conditions to Monarch, but in this day and age we all need a job to pay our rent /mortgages to keep a roof over our heads and put food food in our mouths!

Hope it helps.

IAG recently stated that after rapid expansion by Vueling, growth for 2017 was cut right back after many issues at Barcelona, but shareholders were to expect further expansion from the airline during 2018.

Rumours of LTN and LBA bases for Thomas Cook next year to replace some of the lost Monarch capacity. Anyone know any more?

Monarch was a scheduled service airline while Thomas Cook isn't. Seems unlikely but what do I know.

You can buy Thomas Cook seat only on many outlets as it is a scheduled airline now,

But not in the same sense as Monarch were, even TUI sell a proportion of seat only sales but at the end of the day they are basically a charter airline just like Thomas Cook are, both affiliated airlines to their respective inclusive tour companies. Although Thomas Cook operate scheduled flights to the United States of America from Manchester all of their other flights are charter flights on behalf of the parent company Thomas Cook Holidays.

Thomas Cook Airlines and TUI are the last remaining British in house charter airlines affiliated to their respective holiday brands.

All Thomas Cook flights are available for purchase in the GDS under the code MT.

Can a MAX 8 reach the east coast of N American from Luton's runway?

I fully assume Greybull will hand the Boeing order over to another airline to operate long haul. Birmingham seems more likely though. Swaffield in the days before 'Admin' set up a consultancy company. As far as I am aware, the orders for MAX 8 have not been cancelled by Greybull, but they have placed the 'short haul' operation into Administration having taken KPMG on board to sell the short haul and 'failed'. Funny eh, how KPMG picked up the 'Admin' work!

Anyway, can Luton-Providence be flown on a hot day fully loaded from Luton?

Now why would you mention an airport which already has a European carrier with significant presence and ties with a Luton based airline and has other MAX8's on order........?:oh:

Thomas Cook based routes:

AYT: Tue/Fri
BJV: Sun
CFU:Thu
DLM: Mon/Wed/Thu/Sat
NBE: Tue/Fri
ADB: Sat
LCA: Wed
PMI: Mon

Any source for that? Presume 1 a/c and a leased in one at that?

I think Thomas Cook placed considerable numbers of passengers on Monarch flights- goes back to the days when Airtours took much of the Saturday Palma etc. capacity on those A300s - remember MON 1326/7 anyone? They operated Corfu this year perhaps because Monarch no longer went there.

Unless they placed them on EasyJet flights , they would now be seriously short of capacity ex LTN next season. Whether these will be TCX aircraft or Smart Lynx etc. of course remains to be seen.

Enfidha and Izmir would be new though and surprised not more Palma.

13 flight a week so would this be a Luton based aircraft? Seems like there is plenty of opportunity to add more flights otherwise the aircraft will be spending most of its time on the ground.

Not really.

I have a friend who flies for TCX. He doesn't do more than two sectors a day and the aircraft only usually two return flights - one short (e.g. PMI or ALC) and one long e.g. AYT or MJV) or two long ones. So there isn''t really much slack there apart from Saturday when I suspect the aircraft will either do a W-pattern into somewhere else or say a second PMI will be added during the school hols.

TCX and TUI haven't got sucked into the short turnaround high utilisation game that the Loco's have- they still operate as they have for years and 1-1.5 hour turnarounds are the norm.

As 22/04 has just stated there are a lot of near 4hr flights.
Just checked for Enfidha in June and it's a 06.30 dep so yeah one based a/c it seems.