Helvetic leave Gatwick for Luton

[Buster the Bear]

http://www.helvetic.com/en/dynamic_content%5CPressArticle_38.htm

helvetic changes airports in London

In mid-May, helvetic will start flying to London Luton Airport instead of Gatwick. The airline has come up with an attractive offer to mark the occasion: the first 20 seats on every flight to London and back between May 15 and October 28, 2005, will cost only EUR 19 per segment (excluding fees). This summer helvetic will also be offering additional services to southern Italy.

helvetic is changing airports in London. From May 15, 2005, the airline will fly to London Luton to the north of the city instead of Gatwick. The reason is that helvetic now wants to offer passengers attractive evening slots to the UK capital. This is possible at Luton, but not at Gatwick. Not much will change for travelers, because the transfer from Luton airport to downtown London takes only around 45 minutes, about the same as from Gatwick. Helvetic is launching its Luton service with a special offer for early bookers: the first 20 seats on every flight to London and back between May 15 and October 28, 2005, will cost only EUR 19 per flight segment (excluding fees). «By switching to Luton we can now offer our customers an evening service to London,» explains Peter Pfister, CEO of helvetic. «This way they can enjoy the whole day before having to fly back.»

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[GOLF-INDIA BRAVO]

Well done Luton, hope they are issueing free sun glasses to you at the zoo

G-I-B

[ebenezer]

...the transfer from Luton airport to downtown London takes only around 45 minutes

Excellent news and let's hope it's longer-lived than the last operator to transfer (Volare)!!

Word 'on the block' is that Luton's new parent company has the financial muscle and determination to beat BAA at it's own game when it comes to offering attractive deals...

However, the anouncement is incorrect in one area: excluding the five to ten-minute (depending on traffic) free shuttle bus transfer to/from Luton Airport Parkway Railway Station, the journey into 'downtown London' is 30 minutes by Thameslink and just 23 minutes by Midland Mainline: so it's quicker - and it's cheaper than the Gatwick Express!!!

:ok:

[brabazon]

ebenezer

Maybe Helvetic were being realistic in their time estimates, ie they may have included the bus transfer and waiting for the bus and train. Either way nice change from other statements by other airlines!

I flew Edelweiss from Luton - Zurich a few years back so nice to see it back on the map (after easyJet pulled it)

[nickmanl]

Bloody hell, more awful pink planes!

Seriously though, fantastic news for Luton!

[CAP670]

...Edelweiss from Luton - Zurich....so nice to see it back on the map

Hear hear!

But - I just hope Helvetic's route out of Luton to Zurich is via Compton and NOT via Brookmans Park and Dover; otherwise, they'll need to add 10 minutes to their turn-around times at LTN for hanging around at at the holding point on departure, waiting for traffic departing from London City, Northolt, etc., etc.

:hmm:

[LTNman]

Great news, which will tie in nicely with the reopening of the Thameslink cross London link, which resumes again on the 16th of May.:) :)

[Powerjet1]

Good news indeed and offers an alternative to easy's Basle ops.

[LGS6753]

Good news indeed.

A pink amongst the oranges. The last time that happened was August 14th 1974!!

[Buster the Bear]

Is this the first visible sign of our Spanish friends financial clout, I sincerely hope so?

I understand that when TBI was taken over, Luton Borough Council made an unexpected tidy sum of over £2 million due to astute management of the original concession agreement with a certain High St Bank that eventually sold out to Peter's Pies?

So good news all around. Helvetic was rumoured when easy pulled the plug at Zurich. Since the Spanish take over, rumours are non existent!

No news is usually, GOOD NEWS?

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[Ian Farquharson]

March saw 740,126 terminal pax at Luton an increase of 33.6% over March 2003, this brings the annual figure to 7,951,336 up 15.7%, Helvetic should add a few more!

Ian

[LTNman]

The only rumours I have heard are more Ryanair from Late summer
Fly First to New York using a couple of 757’s
Tara Air using a A330-200 flying Luton to Mumbai
4 times a week each way
LTN>>MUM @ 21.00 Mon / Wed / Fri / Sun
MUM >>LTN @13.45 Mon / 12.45 Weds / 14.45 Thurs and Sat
And finally Swefly using an MD80

This is fast becoming a Golden year for the airport.

[nickmanl]

LTNman, do you actually hold much hope for Tara?

I'm not too sure about them, although I think Swefly may start.

It would be awesome to see a regular MD80 ad A330 service from the airport.

[LTNman]

One lives in hope.

[LTNman]

March saw 740,126 terminal pax at Luton an increase of 33.6% over March 2003

Add just 9874 to that total and times it by 12 = 9,000,000. Don't forget we are talking about off season March figures here not summer figures.

Last August Luton peaked at over 808,000 passengers so it is only a matter of time especially as 180,000 extra passengers used Luton this March compared to last March. If they added 180,000 each month and they probably won’t due to the Wizz anniversary coming up then Luton would pass 10,000,000 in under a year. This is all great stuff:ok: :ok: :ok:

[nickmanl]

Hopefully 2005 will see the expansion of Wizz Air at LTN even more.

From their current network maybe Brussels would work?

[Buster the Bear]

Great news on the passenger figures, lots of customer plump planes using Luton.

Add to this the mass of executive jets which make the airport operator lots of easy money!

Now Luton poached Volare from Gatwick, now Helveeetic, as I believe it to be pronounced (?), who is next?

Now I am only a bear, but if I was Spanish conquistador, I would be talking serious business with:

Air Berlin
Germanwings
Thomsonfly
Ryanair (again)
Wizzair (again)
FlyBe
Norwegian
GB Airways
Monarch Scheduled

Sadly the Orange mob seem to have taken thier eye of the jewell product and seem to prefer Gatwick. Their loss, Buster predicts?

Routes sell from Luton, when was the last pulled from Luton by an established airline?


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Thanks for the pax info LTNman, the place is really FLYING!

[jabird]

Thomsonfly

Have said they "can't afford not to be in London", so LTN would be a natural base, considering BY roots there.

Ryanair (again)

MOL has said previously "most of our expansion from London next year will be at LTN", so I'd be surprised if we don't hear more soon.

FlyBe

Is LTN "their" kind of airport? Aren't they looking more at SEN, where they won't have any competition, as most of the other locos can't get their bigger birds in there?

Surely, if they really want to serve more of the home counties, OXF would be a natural hub for them, but not so sure if they would dare use their PDRs to try and build a terminal to handle more than the 10 or so pax they can take right now.

Routes sell from Luton, when was the last pulled from Luton by an established airline?

> Last I can remember was when EZ pulled LTN to LPL, citing "other priorities". IIRC, yields were ok, but perhaps not much on the ancillary? VLM have proven the demand for the business users, but now Jet 2 have started MAN to LGW, would anyone take a crack at LTN to LPL again - and if so, perhaps FR?

[Lite]

Air Berlin are quite happy at STN from what I've heard, although the airline could do with UK expansion. Their presence at MAN & SOU isn't big, and not everyone is in close proximity to STN. I think if they provided a big expansion to Germany/Austria from a hub in the Midlands like they have at STN, they would not only get a good share of people flying to Germany, but also onward pax. Perhaps EMA should give them a call! We need more German routes & it would be nice to have a hub carrier.

GB only fly from BA hubs, so I'd expect expansion from MAN to be a priority. Although it would be nice to see them at BHX!

Thomsonfly (Britannia Airways) already have a pretty significant operation out of LTN, and their low-cost website thomsonflights.com usually has a number of good deals to sunspots served by the locos. I'm often able to find a better deal two months or so in advance using that site, than trapsing through easyJet & Monarch! I would like to see Britannia promoting their seat-only services more, because its a nice little part of their ops!

I doubt flybe would want to fly into LTN on a grand scale. They're already beginning to fly close to EasyJet in several markets (especially their arrival in BRS & LPL) and I doubt that they want to find themselves in heavy competition. I'm not sure whats happening with SEN, how are things coming along there?

Do Norwegian fly international? They don't have a UK presence, and with no flights LTN/OSL it might be a good plan!

[nickmanl]

Scandinavian operations may be increased in the form of Sterling. Remember those pre xmas flights? I think I'm right in saying they were sort of proving flights, to see if the route would work.

Does anyone know anymore about them? Were they a sucess? Any plans?

[virginblue]

outes sell from Luton, when was the last pulled from Luton by an established airline?

Looking out of my German cave, I remember HLX pulling out with their CGN route and EAE axing their MGL service - about the only German routes served from LTN prior to Easyjet's services to DTM and SXF.

Interesting to note, by the way, that Easyjet serves MUC from STN, CGN from LGW and DTM and SXF from LTN - any explanation for that ? While I can see the story behind MUC (taken over from Go), the other routes are not quite as logical: As AB and FR serve STN from Berlin, it makes sense to avoid STN, but would probably be more promising to serve LGW. To the contrary, to avoid Germanwings on the CGN-LGW, LTN would be a better choice in my opinion - while for DTM any of the London airports could work as there is now competition from DTM.

[Buster the Bear]

http://www.swefly.com/Tidtabell_utrikes.pdf

Timetable shows Luton-Lahore!

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[VIKING9]

Based on todays 18z winds, Luton-Lahore is 7hrs34min. Surely there will be a performance penalty on this leg ?

[Buster the Bear]

Luton-Lahore is via a stop at Skavsta!

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[VIKING9]

In that case then, no problem with performance :p

[LTNman]

Service is meant to start on May 15th but as yet it can’t be booked on their website even though the start date is now only three weeks away. According to Luton Airport’s website the outbound flights are operated by MD80’s where passengers will change aircraft at Stockholm but inbound flights to June 16th are operated by a Boeing 767. After that date it becomes an MD80 service. According to Swe Fly’s website they only own a 767 and a few Fokker 50’s, anyone got any facts. I did notice that the service is being advertised at Asian travel agents in town.

[CAP670]

My info is that the route ex-LTN will eventually be operated by a B767-200 and that the airline is leasing two such aircraft from IFLC. Irrespective, a single aircraft operating through to Lahore will probably work well (Gulf Air in the late 1980s used to operate some Tristar services into LHR via CDG and FRA with Fifth-Freedom Rights being invoked over the European sectors; Varig still operates into CPH via LHR, for example).

However, requiring pax to change aircraft at Stockholm both ways is likely to be a downer in the long-term, IMHO.

Any more developments from TARA Airlines?

:cool:

[Avro Arrow]

ITV London Region are trailing a promotion for a new reality TV series to be shown in the London Region about Luton. It's called (strangely enough) Luton Airport - found on the www.itv.com website:


Luton Airport



The series goes behind the scenes at London Luton Airport to follow the team who get eight million passengers up and away and safely down again every year - while the airport undergoes one of the largest developments in its history.

In Episode One, Security Duty Officer Lisa Woods reveals some of the more bizarre objects passengers try to take on board in their hand luggage and Hughie Workman is out on bird patrol trying to make sure that birds and planes don't mix - but today he has to deal with something considerably larger.

Passenger Services Assistant, Marta Barbero, has some exciting news about her sister who is a singer back home in Spain - she's in the group which has won the competition to be Spain's Eurovision Song Contest entry. The maintenance team make an urgent dash to clear a runaway of a foreign object as a jet bears down on them - and the airport press officer has to deal with a film-making alien in the terminal...

Luton Airport starts on Tuesday 10 May at 7.30pm on ITV1 London

Beats Eastenders I suppose.

AA

[brabazon]

Somewhat bizarrely it's not on ITV Anglia which covers Bedfordshire. What do you get at Whipsnade, Buster?

[LTNman]

Depending on your postcode if you get ITV Anglia via satellite on channel 103 then you can go to channel 963 for ITV London.

Actually anyone in the UK can tune into ITV London by selecting an option in services and doing a manual tune for other channels. I will report back when I find the details on how to do it.

( did a google search and found this http://groups-beta.google.com/group/uk.tech.tv.sky/browse_frm/thread/20fe13cd658bf323/7e5327d51679523b?q=other+itv+channels+group:uk.tech.tv.sky&rnum=14&hl=en#7e5327d51679523b

[brabazon]

LTNman, some people are still using those spikey aerials on their roofs and don't have dishes or cables.

Buster, do you have a dish on your cage?

[CAP670]

Thought Helvetic was leaving LGW 'cos it couldn't secure the right slot for a second (evening) rotation. But it seems that out of LTN, it's only a single daily service which isn't likely to attract many day trippers - be they shoppers, businessmen or 'VFR's.

Strange....

:confused: :hmm:

[LTNman]

Quote from part of a LTN press release:

This will permit Helvetic to offer passengers convenient early evening departures from both London Luton and Zurich, which will appeal to both business and leisure travellers.

Peter Pfister, CEO of Helvetic said : "By switching to London Luton we can now offer our customers an evening service, this way they can enjoy the whole day at their destination before flying home".

When the airport talk about Helvetic's entire UK operation they are talking about just one flight a day! This is confirmed by the airport's scheduled service timetable.