London Luton Airport sees huge drop in flight traffic since lockdown began

London Luton Airport has seen a reduction of 93.5 per cent in flights since the lockdown began.

Since the UK lockdown was announced on March 23, ordinary life has come to a standstill and a dramatic number of flights have been grounded.

The data, from flightradar24.com, looks at the drop in weekly flights between the week ending March 22, a day before lockdown was called, and the week ending April 19.

At London Luton Airport it shows that there were 512 tracked flights in the week ending March 22, compared to 33 tracked flights in the week ending April 19, - a decrease of 93.55 per cent.

A spokesman for London Luton Airport said that Flightradar figures only include the flights tracked by their website which is significantly lower than the actual number of flights, but the airport has seen traffic drop by 90 per cent in the time frame specified.

He said: "Like all UK airports, London Luton has seen an unprecedented and rapid drop in passenger numbers due to the pandemic.

"LLA has taken all necessary steps to protect jobs and the airport’s long term future, including making use of the Government’s job retention scheme.

"We welcome the support already offered by the Government but continue to make the case for additional support to ensure we can quickly resume operations when current travel restrictions are lifted .

"The airport remains open for dedicated repatriation, medical and military flights and General Aviation, and our cargo operation continues to ensure the delivery of vital supplies including medical equipment."

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has advised Brits against all but absolutely essential travel worldwide, with restrictions applying for an indefinite period.

Flight tracking website Flightradar24 recorded just 711 departures from the UK's 10 biggest airports last week. This compares with 7,865 in the week up to the UK's lockdown.

In March, London Luton Airport took immediate action to ensure the commercial viability of the business while continuing to maintain the highest standards of health and safety at the airport in-line with guidance from Public Health England.

The action included a ban on overtime, a freeze on recruitment, restrictions on costs to essential expenditure only, closing parts of the terminal building and the long-term and medium-term car parks, suspending non-essential maintenance and project work and a 20 per cent reduction pay across the business with a 20% reduction in hours.

At the time, Alberto Martin, CEO London Luton Airport, said: "For now, we have managed to avoid the need for redundancies, but we will continue to react to the changing situation and will take decisive action to further protect the business if we need to.

"We know many of our partners at the airport have also implemented similar measures to protect the future of their businesses and in some cases have already had to go further. We hope they can return their usual operations soon.

"We have acted quickly and decisively to protect our business and our employees as best we can, but the situation is changing fast."