Meanwhile, down at Parkway station, the first horizontal section of the new station foot bridge to the DART "station" is ready on a temporary staging ready to slide across. It was on the ground on wednesday evening, with a large crane ready to lift it up, I didn't look yesterday, but it was on staging this evening.

Just thought I'd throw this in amid the debate :p

Wizz’s app says that Luton base will reopen May 1st.

Yep it is true. Handy for those that want to ignore government advice and fly to their second homes in places like Cyprus or by the Black Sea. For many, with long standing bookings, if they don’t travel they will have lost their money. For those staying with friends and family in parts of Eastern Europe I would think many will still go even if they feel uneasy rather than gifting their money to Wizz. Would any of these car journeys to and from Luton Airport be classed as essential journeys?

Wizz are showing a full programme to/from Tenerife starting 1st May......time will tell.

I believe l have a better chance of winning the lottery than Wizz flying to Tenerife on May the 2nd.
People need to wake up and smell the coffee and by the way l don't do the lottery. :ugh:

BBC news is repeating the Wizz story.

Perhaps we need the likes of Wizz/RYR to push back a bit. Otherwise we run the risk of a society becoming risk averse to the extreme. I know several individuals who are perfectly healthy and are now scared to leave the home after weeks in lockdown with nothing but end of world esq news for comfort. Believe it or not, the air really isn't as toxic as we're all led to believe.

People are just following government guidelines. Nothing wrong in people being scared as that should help keep them “perfectly healthy”. It is those that carry on as normal and maybe catch flights into or out of Luton for an early summer break or to see friends and family who are just prolonging the lockdown for everyone else.

Next week Luton should become London’s second busiest airport again which is something I am not comfortable with.

The air might not be toxic, but we all need to observe the government requirements for Covid 19.
Just how many are going to risk there health, just to fly out of our local airport?
Just to point out that the Luton & Dunstable Hospital has now recorded a total of 153 deaths, with an increase of 21 on the previous 24 hours.

Regardless of whether Wizz/RYR want to “push back a bit”, if there’s a lockdown or severe social distancing in place, people will not be flying with them. Simple as that. No passengers = no flights.

Or flights but with very few or no pax.

I think the message of restarting flights didn't go well with authorities. There was big wave of cancelations yesterday and today and Luton has very few fligts left for 1st May and Vienna which also was included in reopening message has now none.

I am on the councils email list and was sent a video where the council leader has said we should all follow the government guidelines and not make unnecessary journeys and to practice social distancing. At the same time the council opens up its airport to holidaymakers.

Bit of an assumption there, Spanish eyes! Who says that everybody through the airport is a holidaymaker? Be aware that essential travel is allowed by the government. As almost nobody is allowed into France, the only way people can make their essential journey is by flying.

Not the only way. Still one train every day.

There are people here in Tenerife that still want to be repatriated but want a direct flight ie TFS - LTN not TFN - BCN/MAD - LHR

Some will be tempted to fly whether it is essential or not and almost impossible to detect unlike those that drove to UK holiday homes. These Wizzair flights don't seem to be in the spirit of the lockdown as I doubt many will be carrying repatriating passengers.

I know of more than a few people who work here (for not much money) but have elderly relatives living on their own overseas so travelling to see them to bring medicines and groceries is perfectly understandable.
its very easy to be critical sitting at home with a healthy bank balance and little or no mortgage. Restaurants and bars in Spain are not going to be opening until December so the idea of people flying away for a holiday is laughable.

Not everywhere is Spain though. Staying with relatives or friends will be high on the list of those going away and not everyone will be seeing family in need. Hard to criticise when someone will lose their money if they don’t travel. Wizz have made a commercial decision to operate these flights. The moral justification is harder to justify when the country is meant to be in lockdown.

Good luck with any of them wanting to go to Cyprus anytime soon. Whole island,Greek and Turkish areas completely a no go area. We have a house in the North(Turkish)side,word from friends who live there permanently is end of July/early August,and that's being optimistic.

So everywhere is in lockdown and Wizz will fly empty aircraft as they want to lose more money?

Operation Herd Immunity! 18m and T2 is next, or maybe not!

I noticed today, this evening around 20:00, the airport <-> parkway shuttle buses are still running, well one vehicle was anyway. Enough airport workers to justify that (i.e. their social distancing )?

It is run by Thameslink and not the airport so while the trains run so does the bus whether there are passengers or not.

Just one thought, the current terminal closure NOTAM was set to expire on 1/5 because they knew operations were likely to restart on that date or it was just a date to be reviewed later and an operator has forced it's hand in offering increased services?
We all know there is still a trickle of services to many other COVID-19 hotspots into LHR with seemingly little checks being done at the London end.

There might be one train a day but you can only board if you meet the French authorities list of essential travel. By definition anybody travelling through France does not fall into this.

I don’t disagree with you that some will be tempted to fly. However there are a lot of Spanish & Portuguese stuck in the UK and I am sure that they would love to be at home with their loved ones instead of the UK. For example, have a look at EZY in LTN how many Spanish and Portuguese employees they have. Every time we fly out of LTN there tend to be at least one of the aforementioned nationalities on board. So to say that it will only holidaymakers is not correct.

Unlikely that those travelling home will be on one way tickets if they have jobs in the UK. We are supposed to avoid seeing family members outside our own households. Now there is talk in the press about a 14 day quarantine period for those entering the UK. No doubt Wizz and the council will hope this won't happen as that will also affect passenger numbers as their motivation for a May 1st opening is money.

That might be the case LTNman but it is not up to us to decide what is essential travel and what isn’t. In case you haven’t read the news lately even the police is struggling to decide what is essential travel and what isn’t. Lots of cases have been thrown out of court because the judge agreed with the defendant. What might not be essential to you and I might be a life saver to somebody else.

CEJM agree with your comments. Here in Tenerife we have two elderly but very fit 80 year olds who like to swim twice a day and go for their daily walk, restrictions here prevent those activities, hence they now need the relative freedom back home in England. So it is more essential for them to return than myself. We all have different interpretations of what is essential (personal) travel. No doubt they will be on one of the Wizzair flights very soon.

Agreed, and I had thought of it is a Thameslink operation.

I had not thought of it being directly part of the train service specification and/or commitments though, but thinking on it now you are probably right.

Luton Airport is part of the national rail network, coded LUA, and can be through ticketed from any other national rail station. Anyone with a valid ticket to LUA turning up at the Parkway has to be carried hence the service still running albeit at the moment 'on demand'.

Where is you dig up that news storey! Hardly topical and from what I would say us a not very respected rag which just regurgitates crap from other sources to direct you to advert driven web site.

The story was first published maybe a year ago but has been resurrected and republished. There is a point to the story with falling passenger numbers. Luton got away with building poor overcrowded facilities knowing that airlines had restricted options with other London Airports being at capacity. That situation will have changed. It will be interesting to see who will be the winners and losers.

Years ago Ryanair moved most of its fleet to Stansted. Easyjet opened a base at Gatwick at the expense of Luton. Will we see the same again with Wizz Air?

Thus the case for T2 to solve overcrowding. Whether it can be financed now is a different storey.
Stansted was very under utilised at the time and a deal by MOL was on the cards. BA all but quit LGW so EZY moved in.
Luton does/did have terminal capacity, what it lacks is runway and overnight capacity. If anyone scales back at Luton, Wizzair will slap it up. They do have plans for LGW and I can see a second Wizzair UK base at some point. Whatever they publicly say, the 321XLRs will be ideal based at LGW.

Wizzair are slowly building up a presence at Gatwick. If extra slots become available, might they be tempted again to bid for them?

The locals would disagree. Can’t see the existing terminal reaching capacity again for a while and I can’t see the airport operator paying for its expansion to 19million which was planned.

The Council were struggling to justify the £124m cost for the approach road to T2 which failed to get past the Council’s scrutiny committee, so the money has yet to be secured. With the Council facing ruin in part due to its reliance on its airport and the money it has thrown at it maybe the chickens are coming home to roost regarding LLAL debts and the interest payments due with next to no income. And who does the airport owe money to? Why the council and the best bit is that the Council had to borrow the money themselves.

Coronavirus: Luton Airport woes contribute to £49m council deficit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...herts-52397213

From the BBC

Something fishy going on here. For the financial year ending April 6th the airport passengers figures were up 1.6% compared with last year despite the 56% passenger drop shown in March. It is this financial year the sh!t will hit the fan.