Who is talking about freight charters? I am talking about the remaining Wizz passenger flights to the UK.

Virtually no one is going to be travelling this Easter weekend since the majority of the usual quasi charter , LCC and tour operators have grounded their fleets for at least another six to eight weeks .

El-Al has effectively closed down as the Israeli authorities has a 2 week quarantine for ALL arriving passengers at Tel-Aviv for the foreseeable future.

Only guest workers from Eastern Europe and Ireland are likely to travel to be honest .

No Wizz schedules to Poland , Italy, the Baltic states , Spain, Russia, or Portugal . Just Bucharest, Cluj-Napoli , Iasi,Budapest, and Sofia today . Everything else canned for the foreseeable even Romania likely to close next week.

As I said most of the flying fleet are freighting at the moment and they are after all a life line for Hungary effectively the national carrier !

Using Bucharest as an example (you can use other cities as well, but LON-OTP has most pax so least prone to things like one-offs causing a spike in demand)...
Fares on Luton-Bucharest do indeed seem to be significantly higher than Bucharest-Luton in the days up to and including Orthodox Easter on 19 April, although fares diminish a bit between Western Easter (12 April) and Orthodox Easter
Fares for Bucharest-Luton do not seem to show any kind of peak at all in the 2nd half of April which seems a little odd for people who are seeing family just for Easter.

I can think of a number of reasons for this
1 - People are returning to the UK over a prolonged period after Easter - e.g. some people planning to spend 2 weeks with their families so the demand for returning is spread over an extended period of time (possible but doubt this would cover everyone)
2 - Wizz's fare system doesn't show peaks that are 3 weeks away (possible at 2 months in advance, very dubious just 3 weeks in advance)
3 - Many people have seen shops, cafes, bars, restaurants, hotels all shutting down and are not planning to come back to the UK until the economy revives and paid work is available again
4 - People have decided that it's best to get back to their families while they still can before flights are completely shut down

And perhaps LTNman might like to know Wizz have already grounded more than eighty of their 110 or so aircraft . He is a little misinformed on just what Wizz are actually operating right now !

Still LTNman usually has an agenda !

That’s because it’s usually operating for the Home office and reason for normally going to Stansted; Certainly taking peop’s back to Tirana however most won’t be making the journey voluntarily that’s for sure .

Say goodbye to eastern European black economy workers who are laid off, and have no social welfare to wait around for. There is no peak after Easter as they ain't coming back.

A lot of crops will rot this year.

Many passengers would have booked their flights months ago to secure the cheapest tickets to spend time with friends and family. If they didn’t travel they would be out of pocket which is a powerful reason to travel if they can only afford to travel once a year. There might still be a perception that most passengers are young but the passenger mix I am seeing covers all age groups right up to the elderly.

While these passengers are helping to keep me in a job I would doubt that a good proportion of Luton’s passengers would be classed as essential travellers when we are all being told to stay at home. The government’s message though only covers domestic travel so no one is doing anything wrong apart from driving to and from the airport.

There is definitely more people leaving than arriving at the moment so a lot of repatriation is still taking place. My local car wash has now shut down so I doubt the casual workers there will be getting 80% of their wages paid by the government.

Did you actually read what I wrote? Not sure why you have decided to bring up the rest of the Wizz network when I didn’t mentioned it. I said that the individual flights operating out of a Luton should still be making a profit as they are full or near full. Would you say that statement is inaccurate?

Almost certainly yes - Bums on seats and complex algorithms whilst 80% of your fleet is grounded and a further 10% operating humanitarian flights for the Polish and Hungarian authorities and with Romania expected to close by end next week Wizz are loosing a shed load right now .

Romanians are flocking home for sure either they have been furloughed or more seriously lost their casual employment possibly and permanently.They have little money in reserve have no access to the safety net ( contrary to popular DM myth ) families at home worried so what would you do ?

Think your methodology through a bit more !

Lionel Messi G5 was in the news for diverting to Paris in the week but turned up at Luton yesterday on a first visit. Not that he is moving from Barcelona FC to LTFC but maybe work at Gulfstream?

Luton is showing the first 4 departures for tomorrow. 3 of them are cancelled.

Bucharest showing no flights until 19th April
Budapest showing all flight from Thursday onwards priced at £16.99

Widely reported that Romania is shutting up shop as well at midnight.

Well, with millions being unemployed legitimately in the U.K, the only reason crops will rot is continued rain.

You’d rather black market labour then? Sad, very sad.

Extraordinary and dark times for both the airport, country and the world. With just 5 departures today and for at least the next 2 weeks the airport must be down to daily passenger figures not seen since the early 60’s.

For the airport authorities they must have preferred that Wizz had suspended all operations so they could close the terminal down.

I have noticed that cement deliveries for the DART stopped a couple of weeks ago and that the workforce is lighter now.

It has been mentioned that National Express has suspended all services from the airport but no one has mentioned the taxi drivers who are all self employed. With the taxi rank also empty it won’t be long before we start to see the tumbleweed as the airport is starting to get that abandoned feeling for much of the day where the few remaining staff outnumber the passengers.

Difference between being unemployed and seeking work and being unemployed and unable to work due to circumstances such as illness, disability or caring responsibilities. U.K. has effectively been at full employment for quite some time.

Every year the airport brings out a press release about expected passenger numbers for Easter. I think this year they will be saying nothing.

This from last year

https://www.travelweekly.co.uk/artic...-easter-travel

As for crops being left in the ground there will be many English and migrants who have stayed that will be without work when this is all over. Even if the English won’t do it the remaining migrants who have a reputation for grafting will save the day.

Without going off topic, they've got to be in the right place, with the right skills...

What few flights remained have been stopped now by the Romanian government

So we are left with Budapest, Sofia & Skopje only now?

Plus the DHL and MNG freighters

Yes, I was talking about pax movements

I believe from today the only flights that Wizz are operating until the 17th April from Luton are to both Budapest & Sofia.

The 19th is the first bookable date assuming that date doesn’t move. I thought there was a total of 3 destinations with 5 departures a day.

Think we can forget that LLAOL will ever build the planned new apron and modify the run up bay into 2 stands as by the time demand picks up they won’t have enough years on their franchise to recover the money. With no new stands the terminal won’t need modifying either which will keep the airports capacity at 18 million for several more years not that I think the airport will be back to capacity for a few years.

This would leave the council via LLAL to take on the task but they won’t be able to afford it either with its drop in income and committed existing expenditure on the Dart at £225 million with a further £50 million being spent on the DCO that might well never get planning permission from the government.

After the 8:40 departure to Budapest there is nothing for 12 hours. I still find it hard to take it all in.

Budapest reduced to twice a day. Fares from £8.99 from April 13th on all future flights although this mornings flight is sold out.

Looks like the total daily flights are now down to 3

According to Routes Online Budapest is as stated 2 Daily A320 & Sofia is 16 weekly A320/321.

I believe a C17 due in this afternoon, but not an excuse for spotters to leave their houses!

I have watched five circuits from my back garden. Not all were touch and go.

From the garden
https://i.imgur.com/7U4HRKn.jpg

How much of the money being used for the transit connection between airport and train station is contractually committed (even if not yet spent) ?
Would it make any sense for LBC to try to pause any sections of the project for a couple of years to try to delay taking on further debt ?

Does anyone know if it’s still on the ground or ever landed?

Thanks

Don’t know what is committed but there are 2 loans needed. An initial £100m plus a further £125 million. There is no evidence that the second part has been paid to the council yet but seeing the work is more than 50% complete maybe they have indeed got the money.

It needs to be remembered that the Dart was never about serving the existing terminal as the airport reached capacity without it. It is all about serving a second terminal which might never happen. The loan repayments will have a significant impact on Income to the council as the council did not charge a passenger levy to pay for it.

Don't think it ever landed and it is gone now

One of the touch and goes

All the touch and goes from the multi-story

Just looking at Luton
 

If someone on Christmas Day had told me that Luton would be handling just a thousand or so passengers a day by Easter Sunday and that RAF C17's would be doing touch and goes I would not have been able to think of a reason why and yet this is the position the airport finds itself in.

Looking at the 2019 annual report under Principal Risks and Uncertainties losing 99.9% of their passengers at the start of the new financial year was not listed.

As expected Luton has lost around 95.5% of its movements in this spot check taken on Easter Sunday.
https://i.imgur.com/ol6yz3L.jpg

Has there been a U turn on Signature opening hours at Luton. Their web site says only EMEA station open 24/7 https://www.signatureflight.com/even...id-19-advisory

Thought it remained 24/7 since the start of the virus while Harrods shut down.