Blue Air has requested court protection from creditors... we can all guess what this means
Blue Air have 3 routes from Luton - Bacau, Bucharest and Iasi. Luton has 6 other airlines besides Blue Air

Not necessarily what you might think. It appears that it is a form of voluntary agreement with creditors which gives the airline 18 months to restructure before it has to start repaying and money it owes. One would hope that as they resume flying and start to generate revenues again the situation will improve for them.

Seems that El Al has retreated from Luton and didn’t even get to start their new Stansted service. Doing random flight searches to Tel Aviv they are only bookable from Heathrow now although even Heathrow does not seem to be bookable until September 1st. Also the airline looks like it is being taken over by the state again.

This will be a blow to the airport as ElAl was the only full fares airline to operate flights to Luton and further reduces the airlines that use Luton for scheduled services to the fingers of one hand. On the other hand there is just TUI.

I think you'll find EL AL has suspend ALL it's flights and not just those to/from LTN/STN.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve read somewhere too that Tui have pulled all flights from Luton this summer?

Yes I know but I went on to say that bookings can be made from Heathrow from September 1st but not Luton or Stansted.

It's only for the rest of the season at least at this stage. LTN back on sale from 26th October.

From Travel Mole:

Wizz Air confirmed today that it will launch six new flights from London to Greece in mid July in anticipation of the Greek authorities lifting a ban on flights from the UK.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has exempted Greece from its advice against all non-essential international travel and holidaymakers returning from Greece won't need to quarantine in the UK from July 10. But the Greek authorities have banned flights from the UK until July 15.
Wizz will launch flights from Luton to Athens and Crete on July 16, followed by flights to Corfu on July 18 and to Zante, Rhodes and Thessaloniki on July 19.

Blue Air resumed ops but more detail about Creditor protection https://www.romania-insider.com/blue...ncy-procedures
Lets hope they make it through before Wizzair take all the market

Upbeat email from Blue Air this morning:More good news from Blue Air

Please find out that during all this period we have modernized and updated our IT infrastructure in order to be able to offer you prompt and quality services. All passengers who bought tickets directly from the Blue Air website and who were affected by the cancellations caused by the restrictive measures, benefited from full refunds, transferring the amounts related to the tickets purchased in the Blue Wallet. For more details about Blue Wallet and other information about vouchers, where and when they can be used please click here.
We went through difficult moments, but now things are on the path of a new normality and we thank you for being with us with patience and understanding all this time. To ensure the smooth resumption of scheduled flights and the fulfillment of all obligations to its passengers, employees and partners, Blue Air Aviation S.A. resorted to the preventive composition procedure. This will allow us to honor all our commitments to you and we hope to remain your favorite airline company.

Yes, we are once again up and running! For you.
Did you miss Europe? Now you can fly again to UK, Spain, Italy and Belgium. Considering the lifting of travel restrictions to UK, Spain, Italy and Belgium, Blue Air announces the resumption of scheduled flights to most of its traditional destinations. Starting Tuesday, July 7, 2020, the company announces that the flight schedule includes over 250 flights per week in the next period and it is fully operational.

Therefore, starting today, the destinations covered by Blue Air are:

From Bucharest Otopeni Airport: Belgium (Brussels), Cyprus (Larnaca), Denmark (Copenhagen), Finland (Helsinki), France (Paris Beauvais, Lyon, Nice), Germany (Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart), Ireland (Dublin), Italy (Florence, Milan Malpensa, Naples), Great Britain (Liverpool, London Luton), Romania (Cluj, Iași), Spain (Malaga, Valencia, Palma de Mallorca), Sweden (Stockholm). From Bacau airport: Belgium (Brussels), Italy (Bergamo, Rome, Turin), Ireland (Dublin), Great Britain (London Luton) From Iasi airport: Romania (Bucharest), Belgium (Brussels), France (Paris Beauvais), Germany (Cologne, Munich), Italy (Turin), Great Britain (London Luton) From Cluj airport: Ireland (Dublin), Romania (Bucharest) From Sibiu airport: Germany (Stuttgart) Domestic flights from the Blue Air base in Turin: Alghero, Catania, Lamezia Terme, Naples, Trapani Regional flights from the Blue Air base in Larnaca: Athens, Thessaloniki

If you believe everything you read. Plenty of companies talk up their prospects and then disappear. The thing to note is that they can't give people cash refunds only vouchers and have admitted they would go bust if they did.

If Blue Air did disappear LTN would be down to just four airlines this summer 😳

Possibly the fewest number of airlines the airport has seen in over 30 years?

I'm sure 5 operators is the least the airport has seen in summer since the 1960s. Even then, there were Britannia, Autair, Monarch and BMA together with sundry other charter operators.

Dan Air had a base at Luton with the Comet and 1-11 but the list was long depending on the year including Invicta Vanguard’s and Altair with their Caravelle’s. Now we don’t even have a variant of aircraft types.

In 62/63 probably only three real operators -Euravia, Autair and Derby?

In 1962, Luton had 42,186 pax.
To put it another way, more people passed through Luton on an average day in 2019 than all of 1962

There was also Debonair in the mid-late 1990s. I was on the inaugural service. We all turned up and did not know where we going - bring your passport they said. All the hacks including me met up in the terminal and discussed where we were flying to - Copenhagen, Munich maybe Barcelona, no Newcastle ( no disrespect to Newcastle). Oh b****r or words 5o that effect rang round the terminal. The landing back at Luton could only be described as an arrival!

I think the last new Luton based airline was Silverjet if we don't count Wizz UK but no doubt someone will correct me.

I think Dan Air arrived in 1969 with two 1-11s, 'CK and 'CP. The Comets came a year or two later.

12 Wizzair sheduled arrivals between 7:20 & 8:30 today, getting back to old times. Along with departures must be getting close to runway capacity again!