Anyone know why there's an Egyptair A330 Freighter arriving from Cairo at 1700... bit of a rarity in the UK.

The rumour was that the aircraft contained around a thousand illegal migrants hidden in containers. Personally I doubt that is true. The other rumour was that the aircraft was carrying a consignment of dates for the Christmas market but then again that could be incorrect.

In the ad hoc charter market the aircraft will go to the airport the charterer wants subject, of course, to operational requirements and slot availability. Egyptair Cargo are fairly regular visitors at Stansted.

Maybe for the Lidl Warehouse near Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire as it is the biggest in UK?

Three more scheduled over the next few days (per FR24).

I think they are still building the Lidl warehouse.

Oh, yes, it was a new store which opened recently in Houghton Regis, just rag a bell!
I don't have any knowledge of the cargo, it was just a wild guess!

Egyptair are quite common in the UK and we receive a lot of Egyptian produce, have done for years. I’d suggest with Christmas fast approaching supermarkets are beefing up efforts to avoid empty shelves - Asda were in the news just a few days ago for massive investment into Christmas.

Moronic comments on migrants from an evidently moronic poster have no place

According to Luton Airport post on FB...........Congratulations to EGYPTAIR on their inaugural cargo flight from Cairo, packed with fresh produce for supermarkets across the region.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e02c8abec4.jpg
I don't think they are looking for oil !

It is MOST important that every stretch of newly laid asphalt or concrete should have holes dug into it as SOON as possible ...

If the airport dug once they would have had enough money for a 5 star terminal. So how many drop off zones has the airport had? This one lasted around 2 years before it was moved and then moved again. The site is now the Dart station.

https://i.imgur.com/mMI6DUk.jpg

Blue Air inbound from Bucharest, it's been a while, but seems to be outbound to the usual Bacau.

Bim not happy
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-...herts-59635009

Even ardent airport supports would secretly admit that there is something corrupt and decidedly dodgy when the airport owner gets to approve the airport operators planning application. This is reinforced by comments from the chairwoman of LRT that the community including the planning committee will financially benefit if the application was approved. Bim just shares the views of those that the council ignores.

Meanwhile the airport car parks are all but empty again. Time for another council bailout to not only its own airport company but to the shareholders of the airport operator?

I am not blindly supporting the airport here, but please provide evidence that what the airport has done is 'illegal'? If there was illegality, surely one of the pressure groups would've challenged this in court? You call the decision "corrupt and decidedly dodgy"... again, please could you back this up and prove that the process was improperly followed?

Bim knows what he's doing here. The Tories like to blame Labour for 'politicking' for his local constituents but he knows full well there is no mechanism here for calling the application here..."The government has the power to "call in" planning applications that local authorities approve, and make the ultimate decision. This usually happens in cases where the decision may have wider effects beyond the immediate locality or potentially conflict with national policy."

This scheme doesn't meet that criteria. There is no significant infrastructure change or discernible increase in traffic. Many aircraft are being up-gauged and would result only in an additional 15 flights on average per day (around 1 flight per hour, although there is very little capacity to add more at peak times anyway).

I never said anything that has taken place is illegal but that doesn’t mean it is not corrupt or dodgy in the eyes of the public, which means the application requires independent scrutiny. My next prediction after getting the vote spot on with 7 votes to 2 is that the decision will not be called in.

Interesting point made by Dannyboy 39 about an extra 15 flights a day. The airport operator claimed at that planning meeting that there will be only an extra 3 flights a day with larger aircraft taking the additional passengers.

The airport operator claimed at that meeting that there will be only an extra 3 flights a day with larger aircraft taking the additional passengers

It's remarkable how that wasn't challenged either at the meeting or by the press afterwards. Basic maths to expose the larger aircraft myth - 1,000,000 passengers / (3 flights*365) suggests these larger aircraft need to be taking 304 passengers each.

Anyone with any understanding whatsoever of Luton airport's operations and future knows it is incredibly disingenuous of the airport to suggest that would be the case.

I'm pretty sure that's a grammatical error in the reporting. It's 3 extra flights per day, with the remainder of the 1,000,000 extra passengers being made up of current flights on larger aircraft, ie: 319's being replaced with 320's and 321's.