The dart will be managed by the airport operator and not LRT. So who is paying who?

https://www.london-luton.co.uk/corpo...ancies/tsddart

All jet aircraft must now backtrack.

Q) EGTT/QMRXX/IV/NBO /A /000/999/5152N00022W
A) EGGW
B) 22/02/16 00:00 C) 22/05/02 14:00
E) ALL ACFT WITH A MTOM GREATER THAN 5700KGS AND ALL JET ACFT ARE REQUIRED TO MAKE USE OF FULL RWY 07/25 LENGTH FOR DEP

Anyone know why

A cynical attempt to temporary reduce departure noise in both directions. We can speculate why but is no doubt linked to the DCO.

Any use of the new arrival stack ZAGZO yet? It does look like traffic arriving are much higher around BKY / LOREL, keeping them away from STN inbounds and if holding is required then continue onto St Neots area.
The back tracking could be a method for greater separation whilst controllers get used to it - more fuel used though so that's green!

Most flights arriving from the East over the last two days have routed approx Ipswich-Bury St Ed - overhead or north of Cambridge - St Neots (even when no hold is required) before heading down to Luton, irrespective if there is anything inbound to EGSS or not.
It seems an unnecessary additional cost of fuel and time, especially when the more direct route (Ipswich-Sudbury-Haverhill-Duxford as used previously) has no conflicting inbound traffic to Stansted. So much for aviation reducing its carbon footprint, but I guess NATS wont foot the additional fuel cost or plant the trees to compensate.

Depending on how long the situation continues in Ukraine and if it deteriorates further, Wizz Air will have around 22 slot pairs a week they will have free this summer...

This number also includes the slots to Moscow and St Petersburg, as UK airlines are banned from flying to Russia. Wizz Air are unlikely to be able to get around the ban on flying to Russia with Hungarian registered aircraft, as the UK/Russia bilateral agreement is to only allow 2 UK and 2 Russian airlines to operate between the two countries. With BA and Wizz being the two UK airlines.

All routes to Russia and Ukraine from Luton were operated by Wizz Air UK aircraft, so I am sure the airline will be keen to put the Airbus' to work on other routes!

Kyiv - Daily
Lviv - 3x Weekly
Odessa - 2x Weekly
St Petersburg - 4x Weekly
Moscow - Daily

So inevitably there will be delays this summer as a result of this.

It seems somewhat disingenuous to talk about alternative routes from Luton when Europeans in a capital city just 3 hours away are being killed by a country that is out of control. This is the new Covid so one one knows where this will go as Sweden and Finland are now also being verbally threatened.

Demand for travel from Luton is now going to fall due to travel and holidays becoming unaffordable for many of Luton’s passengers.

2021 passenger figures were 4.5m, which is 16% lower than 2020 and 75% lower than 2019.

January 2022 figures were 443,556 passengers.

Luton arrivals using the new Hold tonight, hello St Neots!

I don't think WUK had restarted the St Petersburg or Moscow routes, anyhow, their booking engine showing nothing until 19th June.

So why not just hold them at the intersection longer rather than forcing a backtrack? Both would achieve the same delay.

Looks like the airport will soon need more hard standing and fast with the number of private jets flying in each week to watch the Hatters in the Premier League…

God loves an optimist.... :ok:

We will see once A1 to A4 holds are full awaiting departure and CTA congestion kicks in affecting pushbacks and slots.
Last night there were 5 arrivals doing to new extended route over Cambs and 5 departures on Alpha.
Do we still have any ATCOs present who can comment on whether this is noice reduction related?

Well if I'm reading the NOTAM correctly it is only in force until 2nd May (at 14:00). So is there any WIP that could be the reason for it? Or just a trial until the start of the summer season?
If it's for noise reduction then it's swings and roundabouts. Aircraft getting airborne further from the upwind end of the runway will be maybe 300ft (my guess) higher crossing residential areas. Good! But they will be applying take off power 1000ft closer to any residential areas behind them. Not so good!

Kazakhstan registered, Moscow based aircraft arrived, hum......

Arrived from Grenoble...Most Russian based Biz Jets are on foreign registers so it's going to be a right can of worms to keep track of them!

Someone at the LRT press office seems to be feeding the news outlets with a few porkies. The claim is that the “30 minute” shuttle bus journey will be replaced with a Dart journey that will take under two minutes.

According to Thameslink the journey takes six minutes and according to LRT the Dart will do it in just under four minutes.

It is also described as seamless,which it isn’t, as the same ticketing arrangements will remain.

Interesting comment that the Dart will open later on in the year so it looks like the delayed opening for Easter is also going to be missed. It looks nice in the photos though and seems almost complete.

https://www.bedfordshirelive.co.uk/n...amless-6728043