Well, except that its quite clearly not a fact.

Seems like a fact to me walking around the airport.

Changing the subject anyone going to Israel is required to self isolate for 14 days from Thursday. Big impact on Luton as most people won’t go.

El Al last operated the LY311/2 on 28th Feb. Fly Bosnia seem to have stopped flying, at least for the time being, last flight SJJ-LTN was 29th Feb, last flight SJJ-Rome was 28th Feb, don't seem to have been operating any other routes. Their only aircraft hasn't appeared on FR24 this month.

Under EU laws that cover Luton, if EL Al don't use the slot they will lose it.

(edit) Their next flight doesn't depart until 20th March but with the new conditions imposed on travellers to Israel I would expect that flight to be consolidated with maybe Heathrow.

Transport Secretary Grant Schapps has requested that ACL waive the "use it or lose it" clause in slot allocations. Apparently lots of aircraft are flying around empty to preserve slots.

Maybe we should start a sweepstake and guess how many passengers will have passed through Luton by the years end. I am guessing the figure will drop from 18 million to around 14 million. No urgency then for the planning application for 19 million passengers.

It's funny Spanish Eyes I was thinking the same thing. You picked my number so I wil have to go lower - I think the lowest could be 12.5 million. We probably will need the planning application by 2022 though

More like slip it in whilst everyones attention is somewhere else!

Passenger update, touch of Southampton?
 

Thought I would do a passenger update rather than my normal construction update. What a difference a week can make, as I can't remember seeing the terminal this empty for years. The photos were not taken during the morning peak but just during the day when there is a steady stream of arriving and departing passengers and those waiting around. Plenty of flights showing on the boards, a few last minute cancellations plus no doubt others missing due to earlier flight reductions so I am guessing there are many no shows and no late bookings.

I also watched a Wizz A321 take off, it was airborne just beyond Taxiway Charlie which is the middle taxiway.

Total of four cars plus an airport van when this photo was taken.
https://i.imgur.com/XgaOr1P.jpg

Normally a busy area but not today
https://i.imgur.com/7ppMO3x.jpg

All but empty
https://i.imgur.com/PLGWDV2.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/fRq0Vde.jpg

No problem finding a seat
https://i.imgur.com/87Kk8sT.jpg

LTNman

Just out of curiousity, whilst you were doing your rounds of the terminal and drop off area earlier today how many English voices did you hear 😉

On a more serious note those photos clearly show how bad the situation has become, it's unbelievable how empty the airport looks. A similar view was taken of the terminal of my local airport of Southampton the day after the collapse of Flybe but that was fairly understandable considering that the airline accounted for 95% of the airport's business.

It'll be interesting to know the passenger figures for today as going forward it's not looking too good especially by looking at your photos. On the news earlier it announced that people were cancelling their travel plans at an alarming rate not only those intendeding on travelling abroad but also those staying in the UK.

It's going to have an absolutely detrimental effect on the entire travel industry this year, alot of people working in the industry are afraid of their livehoods, myself included.

If you want the truth I didn't hear many voices of any language.

As I said these photos were not taken in the airports peak periods but it still looked bad compared to last week. We have to remember that Luton in February was Luton in August not that long ago.

Well, there was meant to be 15,000 passing through yesterday, 11,000 actually showed up. Also looking at the flight boards earlier, around 4 flights were cancelled, all being Italy. I have to say it’s been rather dead up here in departures today. Things aren’t looking promising at all.

How bad actually is it? I flew out of STN in the middle of the day on Friday and it didn’t seem especially quieter than a normal winter day. I didn’t get to see many flights board or disembark but those I did seemed to have fairly healthy loads. Both my flights out and back were almost full.

It was similar in Nantes, a number of domestics along with Gatwick, Stansted and Fuerteventura were busy. Malpensa had 0 pax (20 inbound), Venice and Strasbourg (where the French outbreak is concentrated) cancelled. Orly on a CRJ had 5 pax but CDG on an Airbus looked full so maybe low is normal.

No idea, it was a moment in time taken today so take it as a snapshot. I didn’t hang around, didn’t touch any surfaces and kept my distance from humanity which wasn’t difficult. If 11,000 passengers were reported travelling through departures then double that number for those arriving. Just 22,000 passengers for mid week seems remarkably low when last March the figure for the month was 1.35million

1.35 million, equally distributed, is 43,500 a day. Your snapshot could mean a reduction of up to 50%.

Higher numbers on Fridays and weekends I would have thought but there seems to be a serious reduction in passenger numbers from what I was witnessing only a week ago.

Wizz and Easyjet flights to the Czech Republic, are about to end for a period of time due to a travel ban on foreigners entering the country and citizens not being allowed to leave the country.

Slovakia to shut down all international flights

Now Foreign Office advice not to travel to parts of Spain including Madrid. I wrote on Monday about my observation about a massive drop in passengers. We haven’t seen nothing yet.

The knock on effects are going to be serve for those that supply the airlines and airports, cash flow will be under massive pressure. The strongest will survive, but with the airline works at times on 2-3% profit margins, one can only image the affect on staff working directly for, or indirectly in the aviation industry.

Seems we can add Malta to today’s list unless passengers don’t mind being quarantined.

Buster mentions airports and airlines but let’s not forget LLAL. They have borrowed massive sums for its planned airport expansion so are paying interest payments to the council who in turn have borrowed the money themselves. The Town Hall will be worried as fees to the council will be in free fall not only due to a drop in passengers but due to the diversion of fees to pay the interest payments.

With you around, how could we possibly forget...

Looking back on your handful of posts you say a lot but contribute nothing to this thread and just moan like an old woman.

Hard times for all at Luton so don’t shoot the messenger when I expand the discussion to the owner of the airport.

Poland to close its borders to non-citizens
Edit - also Ukraine

At this rate, Wizzair are unlikely to be flying at all to Luton by Monday

Thanks for your observations.

LTNman I don't think that kind of personal comment is helpful, after all in recent weeks you have published your public toilet experiences, and your comments on the absence of spoken English in the LTN terminal.

The way things are going the only language to be heard in LTN International may well be English.

Please don't diminish someone who hasn't made many posts, perhaps they have a life outside PPrune,

More cuts to local services then, or default on the interest repayments?

Some airline commentators stating it could take up to 18 months for worldwide traffic numbers to climb back to pre-Covid-19 levels, LBC could really be in trouble? I am sure LBC have a Plan B, or let us hope so when income reduces massively?

I seriously doubt that anyone in the industry had a Plan B for dealing with anything as calamitous as the worldwide effects of Covid-19 will prove to be.

Plenty of scenarios in the annual report about different risks to the airport. Viruses is not one of them. https://www.london-luton.co.uk/Londo...6b1f5bf1d4.pdf

When you think it cannot get any worse it does. Time to start thinking the unthinkable. Will Wizz survive this? Big implications for Luton if they don’t.

Anyone could go, even IAG. Jet2, TUI possibly have the advantage of holding more forward cash from packages, people booking their summer hol flights. BA and the like will be hammered by lack of premium demand and higher % of late bookings.

I think SLAE can stand down T2 will not happen.

Too much money committed to abandon the application. Passenger numbers over the next 2 or 3 years will dictate timescales if approved. Issues for Luton will be the collapse of a major Luton player or lots of spare slots at Gatwick where airlines would prefer to be. Just need to look at the TUI and easyjet operation at Luton compared to Gatwick.

Unfortunately it looks like it's time to close the hangar doors for a while.

Am I right in thinking that LBC needs to find £125m to finish DART? Good luck with that!

They also need to find £124 million to build the T2 enabler road and have gone to government and the tax payer after the councillors discovered the build was not viable. Have they bitten off more than they can chew?

They have realised too late that by being not so clever and giving themselves planning permission to build it they now have to fund it. If it was part of the DCO they would not have to fund it.

Apparently on Sunday morning (15th) only 25% expected departing passengers showed up.

Is that 25% of those with tickets or 25% of what would be expected in normal times?

Looks like there is going to be a premium price charged for the new non stop rail service from Parkway to London. This would mean there will be no flexibility for passengers to swap trains if a fast or slower one was due.

19 cancellations on the board today and that doesn't count the flights that disappeared last week.