Luton Airport ‘must expand or stagnate’

On Monday plans to double the number of passengers using the airport were announced, with a planning application likely to be lodged in April.

London Luton Airport Limited (LLAL), the company that owns the airport on behalf of Luton Airport, wants capacity increased to 18 million passengers a year, with the possibility of growth to 30 million in the future, using the existing runway.

The planned growth will happen within the current ‘footprint’ of the airport, with new taxiways to the runway, a new ‘pier’ along which passengers board planes and multi-storey car parking included within the plans.

Steve Heappey, director of customer and corporate services at Luton Borough Council, said new road layout and more security gates would be created to resolve the “shocking” queues currently experienced by passengers getting to and through the airport.

Although the airport had been extremely successful over the past decade, there was a danger that airlines would look elsewhere to grow their flight programmes if it could not accommodate them, he said.

He said a “radical solution” to the demand for flights in London and the South East had been revealed with the government’s announcement of a consultation on a new Thames Estuary airport yesterday, but that this would take a long time to come to fruition and that Luton also acted separately to serve its own catchment area.

Mr Heappey said that although it was currently “business as usual” with current operating company London Luton Airport Operations Limited (LLAOL), the council had to be prepared for the possibility that the 30-year contract would end when a ‘break clause’ comes up in 2014.

But he said there had been no discussion with potential successors to LLAOL, who he said were preparing their own growth plans.

He added: “This idea that the council is being greedy and there is someone else out there simply isn’t true.

“There are people out there who watch for developments but there’s been no discussion with any of them.

“If we do go to the market it will be an open, competitive process.”

LLAL has insisted that it wants the airport to be a “good neighbour” and that all opinions will be listened to, and as far as possible incorporated into the plans.

A four-week pre-application consultation will be launched at the beginning of February.