Apart from River Isle, I've never heard of any of those retailers!

Might be an age thing but to be honest nor have I although some retailers like Pinko, who have just a handful of shops in the UK including Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Mayfair in London might be in for a trading shock at Luton when they discover the empty wallets of many of Luton's passengers.

Perhaps Lidl and Poundland might have been a better choice!

I already thought of that. Greggs the pasties and sandwich company had a sniff around the airport last year, as I saw a delegation getting a tour. No idea why it did not happen but it would have made a dent on M&S's sales

Hamleys (the toy store) are also having a shop in the extended terminal.

Lidl would do well with there biggest distribution centre in UK to date coming just up the road Lidl plans to build largest UK warehouse near Luton - BBC News This development might push up some more business traffic anyhow :-)

Would be nice to see them add more fast food with tables to eat in. McDonald's, Burger King, KFC etc. I have been told Burger King was to be removed from downstairs.

Also good to see Blue Air doing lots of advertising in the local area. Been on buses and in the papers. (Mostly about Turin and Larnaca)

The 360 view shows WHSmiths, Starbucks, Costa Coffee, Pret A Manger, M&S and the International Currency Exchange which has already opened.

The video which looks from a different viewpoint also show a Burger King buried deep by arrivals but no food court that is around now.

Any idea why the airport has chucked a load of bizjets on the east apron? It’s took out 47R & 47L for most of the day

No idea but I thought Harrods were renting extra space on just the south stands. If Luton had the space it would contend for Europe's busiest biz jet airport.

https://www.villiersjets.com/five-of...-jet-airports/

https://blog.privatefly.com/europes-...rports-in-2016

Harrods Offers Temporary Parking Fix at London Luton
Curt Epstein
| December 2017

With ramp space at a premium at crowded London Luton Airport, Harrods Aviation is offering a temporary solution by leasing an additional 53,000 square feet of aircraft parking at its FBO there.

“Customers can now take advantage of this extra parking capacity,” said Kerry Besgrove, the company’s operations director. Harrods invested in the space to meet the growing demand for its FBO, one of two service providers at the airport. “This additional parking will provide up to five additional aircraft parking spaces for customers wishing to enjoy our service,” Besgrove said.

While the lease on the additional space will expire on March 24, Will Holroyd, the company’s sales and marketing director said, “We continue to seek a longer-term solution to meet the growing demand for the use of London Luton Airport by the larger Gulfstream, Bombardier, Dassault, and Embraer business aircraft.”

More likely because of this http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articl...luton-terminal Some shiny G5 / GXs to make the place look good during the tour.

Harpenden campaigners fight for reduced aircraft noise from Luton Airport | St Albans and Harpenden News - Herts Advertiser

So what is "to enable more westerly departure planes to turn west, away from Harpenden, rather than east as they do currently." Do they mean stopping the left turn towards BNN picking up the HEN radial on a Compton SID or are they talking about LHR Departures? What, the NIMEYs might be saying that LHR is part of LTN noise issue, that will be a first!

Mixed departure routes?
 

Since I can remember, when LHR easterly departures occur, the aircraft fly low over Elstree and Borehamwood and once they reach Radlett the engines power are increased as they begin their climb over St Albans and Harpenden. Luton has always been blamed for Heathrows jumbo jet traffic. However, if the airport does get approval for further growth, can westerly departures not be split? As we all know current departures all immediately turn left as they climb out over south Luton. But why not trial some turning 'immediately' right on departure (I have seen several dozen such departures over the years due to weather) and am not aware of any complaints when this has happened. In effect, and although I dispute Harpenden residents complaining of 'very loud' engine noise overhead caused by LTN, at least by dividing up the departure route, there might not have to be any further increase in aircraft flying over the 'tiny' hamlet (consisting of about 40 homes) situated between Harpenden and St Albans as the airport grows?

They can't turn right unless you close the London Gliding Club as they have a local agreement to have the airspace up to 3500 feet QNH all the way along the A505 from just north of the airport. They ask for it back and we cease ops if weather dictates. If this were a regular occurrence you would get noise complaints from Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard.

I don't think it's Compton Departures that are the problem anyway for Harpenden,
rather "Match" and "Detling" ones- which will have increased with the growth of Wizz Air. Dover bound departures could be routed via Compton - they are from Birmingham.

ATC
 

Well done NATS London Luton chooses NATS as provider

Good to see the unit will remain on-site and not be done remotely!

Not sure these have been mentioned before but a couple of observations:

Vueling would appear to have reduced BCN to just 1x a day from 25MAR2018 dropping the morning rotation. AMS remains 2x daily along with the 3x weekly FLR.

It would also appear TAROM have re-timed their 3x weekly IAS flights with all departures now at a later time of 23:20.

Does anyone know also if the Iberia/Air Nostrum flights will be back this Summer?

Re Vueling
Also some of the BCN flights during Sept and Oct have top end prices on random days ( Tuesday/wednesday)so maybe even they will be dropped.
What with Easy flying up to seven flights a day on some days to AMS I am surprised Vueling are carrying on with that as well
Have been looking at Air Nostrum for a while but can't find anything bookable.
Think I read somewhere that there was a three year subsidy (promotion of tourism I think they called it)of 3.5 million euros for Iberia regional to operate from Vigo to various destinations, that was in 2014/2015 so maybe this has now finished??

Aren't easyJet 3 x daily to BCN in summer which will squeeze out Vueling even more?

Maybe Vueling should try MAD - much less well served!

Am also surprised they are persisting with AMS given how dominant easyJet are on that route - when you think how many flights leave to AMS from across all of the London airports, its incredible how successful LON-AMS is

BCN x 3 Daily in Summer, LGW does x 6

EZY does MAD as well but only once a day.

AMS x 7, from STN x 4, from LGW x 8, from SND x 2 - Transavia don't even bother with London market so if Vueling go, more money to be made in Austria/Germany, it will be job done for EZY on this route!