Not quite. LLAL rather than LLAOL gets a bailout from the council to pay the interest on the money it has borrowed from the council.

It has been reported in the press that the chairman of the board of directors of LLAL who is a councillor is also the finance portfolio holder of the Council so will be asking himself for the money. It was also reported that residents will be paying an airport stealth tax from next year if they want all their bins emptied.

Wasn't it also reported that Luton has applied for emergency funding from the government? It seems they crowed about avoiding 'austerity' owing to the airport revenue but are now positioning themselves to blame the government when their plan fails. Seems rather like a country which allowed itself to become over dependent on oil revenues being tanked when oil prices fell and they had done nothing to mitigate the clear risk. Perhaps Luton is the new Venezuela ?

https://www.lutontoday.co.uk/news/po...-luton-2900579

The above report states that the Council has already been given £11.26m of emergency funding by the Government but they want another £50m to bail out their airport. Let us all remember LLAL was set up as a zero risk company but the Council got greedy and went on a spending spree with borrowed money. Now it is the governments fault where the truth is it is all the Council's fault.

There is a full Council meeting tonight where zombie councillors will ask no questions, as they are devoid of independent thought and will vote the new budget through after taking turns to once again blame the government. They will blame the government because they will believe what the Council leaders are telling them.

Maybe the Board of Directors of LLAL who are all councillors should resign but they won't. They will be in the chamber tonight voting through the budget. Conflicts of interest won't bother them as it is standard practice to vote on airport matters.

I'm aware that Wizz has been one of the more aggressive airlines in trying to restart large numbers of flights. Does anyone have a rough idea of what sort of loads they have been seeing in/out of Luton in the last week or two since operations largely restarted ? 10 % load factor ? 50 % ? Higher ?

87.6 passengers per flight for June

Luton Stats
 

Passengers 61,969 down 96% from 1,674,161 last year
Year to date 3,029,410 down 64% from 8,518,550
Rolling 12 months 12,510,829 down 28% from 17,376,461

Airport CEO said he expected 70% less pax for full year 2020 so as more capacity comes online I suspect things will look better later in the year. Obvoiusly subject to pax appitite to travel.

I know it is fashionable to blame local government, especially the aforementioned poster, but some points as I understand...
1. In 2010, council funding was around £120-£130m a year from central government.
2. In 2020, council funding was around £10m from central government.
3. Central government encourages councils across the U.K. to look for commercial means to raise funds. Meaning that if there are any economic shocks, local government are in the firing line when they are already 90% down in funding from 2010 levels.
4. LBC have the advantage of having a key national asset in their constituency. It has enabled council tax levels to remain lower than others such as Central Beds, but to raise funds there is no mechanism to increase these above assigned national caps that have already been used this year.
5. Lots of other councils are in the same position.

Band D Council tax

£1,894 Bedford
£1,872 North Herts
£1,850 Luton
£1,828 Stevenage
£1,809 St Albans
£1,392 Tower Hamlets
£1,236 Kensington and Chelsea

The Council says that Luton's council tax would be £370 more if it wasn't for the airport taking band D Luton to £2220.
Makes you wonder how they spend their money when everywhere else is below £1900. Ahh yes funding Carnivals and trying to get City status. Meanwhile in my part of Luton the library was shut, the community centre lost its funding, the playing fields and sports pavilion were closed.

Government cuts to Luton certainly played a major part but I have to wonder if the Government sees the Council with an income source why not cut back their own funding.

Wizz air
 

Wizz air announce more new routes from Luton

Luton to Valencia 3x weekly
Luton to Ibiza 4x weekly
Luton to Alicante daily
Luton to Santorini 2x weekly
Luton to Mahon 3x weekly

Malaga also increasing to twice daily several times a week

For the first time in months I saw 3 aircraft queuing for take off today with a string of arrivals.

They could also have used their advantage to build up some reserves just in case the future wasn't as helpful as the past. Still, they didn't go into commercial real estate did they?

Well LLAL owns plenty of buildings of all shape and sizes at the airport that are let or empty. They then spent £19m buying a farm and its land and also bought the land surrounding the Dart station at Parkway for future development of a multi story car park and offices. The farmland has now been abandoned and is growing no crops and is full of thistles. The farmhouse, which was listed, has been knocked down this year as the roof had fell in.

New route for Wizz with no doubt start up assistance from the airport?

More like the Council that used to offer rebates to the airport operator. This is mentioned in the airport operators accounts.

Wizzair

With the addition of the new routes from 7/8th August, a further aircraft will be added to the base.

I thought Luton was out of overnight stands?

The overnight slot seems to have come from TUI for Summer 2020

More importantly many of Luton's stands require a nice little ride in a standing room only coach, which makes an aircraft interior seem empty on a full flight.

Today that Easyjet uploaded its S21 schedule shouldn't they have uploaded their new enhanced flight programme out of LTN, the one we read about lastmonth, with new additions and increased frequencies? No sight of it...