Luton Airport

[southern442]

Would monorail not be the best solution? We seem to run scared of the idea in this country, even driverless trains have to have a pretend driver!

It's about time we had a good monorail in this country, we don't have nearly enough!

 

[jon0844]

It's about time we had a good monorail in this country, we don't have nearly enough!

Well they certainly put Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook on the map.

 

[edwin_m]

With the opening sentence in the opening post mentioning 30 minutes between Luton and London, making it faster than from Gatwick, I have noticed that the 30 minutes is specified to St Pancras.

I don't know what reference point in Central London has been used for the Gatwick comparison, but I would hope it would also be St Pancras so as to make it a fair comparison.

Better still (this is my own opinion), it would really be helpful if the Central London reference point for public transport journeys could be St Pauls in the future. After all, I believe the AA (Automobile Association) use the former GPO building at St Pauls as the reference point for road distances when the generic term "London" is input to calculate routes. Also, St Pauls is in the true City of London too.

In my view it's reasonable to quote time from Victoria for Gatwick and St Pancras for Luton, as both are within most people's definition of Central London and I think most will realise that not all central destinations are equally accessible. I'm not so sure about Paddington though...

I'd hazard a guess that most people's destination in Central London is somewhat to the west of St Pauls. A truly central destination would probably be Oxford Circus, which is about equidistant from St Pancras and Victoria.

I can remember when Birmingham International Airport had the maglev link from the original terminal building to International Station, which I believe is the present day cable operation.

The Birmingham Maglev worked technically but it was really a solution in search of a problem in that it didn't do anything a more conventional peoplemover couldn't do just as well. It closed down because of lack of spare parts and support for its unique systems. The present Doppelmayr cable system does indeed re-use the concrete viaduct built for the Maglev.

 

[nottinghamcity]

I can remember when Birmingham International Airport had the maglev link from the original terminal building to International Station, which I believe is the present day cable operation.

It is good to see the rolling (levitating?) stock is still in useful employ!

 

[notlob.divad]

With the opening sentence in the opening post mentioning 30 minutes between Luton and London, making it faster than from Gatwick, I have noticed that the 30 minutes is specified to St Pancras.

I don't know what reference point in Central London has been used for the Gatwick comparison, but I would hope it would also be St Pancras so as to make it a fair comparison.

Better still (this is my own opinion), it would really be helpful if the Central London reference point for public transport journeys could be St Pauls in the future. After all, I believe the AA (Automobile Association) use the former GPO building at St Pauls as the reference point for road distances when the generic term "London" is input to calculate routes. Also, St Pauls is in the true City of London too.

In my view it's reasonable to quote time from Victoria for Gatwick and St Pancras for Luton, as both are within most people's definition of Central London and I think most will realise that not all central destinations are equally accessible. I'm not so sure about Paddington though...

I'd hazard a guess that most people's destination in Central London is somewhat to the west of St Pauls. A truly central destination would probably be Oxford Circus, which is about equidistant from St Pancras and Victoria.

I thought the 'Centre of London' was supposed to be Charing Cross. I am sure I read somewhere that it was the centre of the house numbering system with number 1 always being the end closest to Charing Cross. As an outsider, Trafalgar Square / Charing Cross area is what I consider the centre of modern London even if the 'City of London' is further east.

I do however agree with the point there should be a standard defined point that all journey times are stated to so that everyone knows what is being talked about. Where that point should be is surely a whole different debate though.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The nearest point in Zone 1 is probably the only reasonable way to do it (which is roughly what it is now) because destinations vary so much. In practice there is so much pratting around to do in airports that 5-10 minutes here and there make no odds.

Indeed, Luton may well win out on simply being a very quick airport to get through and one not very badly susceptible to delays. Stansted is terrible for immigration and security queues, while at Gatwick luggage takes ages and you might as well wear hiking boots the distances you have to walk. While LHR is off my avoid list as T2 and T5 are excellent and very efficient.

 

[Hophead]

Curiously enough, the BBC has, today, published an article addressing the question of where distances are measured from (and the Eleanor Cross in London does rate a mention, naturally enough):

Are we nearly there yet? Finding out where 'there' is

When you see a road sign saying 50 miles to your destination, where exactly is it 50 miles to? You would think it's fairly simple to find out - it is not.


continues...

 

[HowardGWR]

while at Gatwick luggage takes ages and you might as well wear hiking boots the distances you have to walk.

In my experience, very quick, but agreed, you have to do a route march so perhaps that's why the luggage beats you through immigration at Gatwick!

Regarding distances, surely what is relevant to pax is time (and ease of journey) from exiting the aircraft to hotel or home - and the other way around. Then comes cost, as in the latter case, one has to compare airport car parking charges and fuel and wear, with overall cost of public transport from end to end.

 

[westcoaster]

what ever system is introduced it will need to cope well with the gradients involved. with rail that will need some form of rack.

 

[mr_jrt]

If you're going to build fixed infrastructure wouldn't it make more sense to focus services on Luton station itself rather than splitting them between two stations?

Whatever form said infrastructure takes (be it heavy rail, light rail, or guided bus), there is ample room to run alongside the MML from the main Luton station to the airport.

...and there's also ample room to add more platforms at the main station if traffic levels necessitated the need to do so. Surely that makes far more sense than stopping intercity services just a over a kilometre from the main city-centre station and then running through a major station serving a huge population centre?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't personally think it makes all that much sense to stop InterCity services at either Luton station, to be honest. A better solution to me would be to stop *all* of them at Bedford, allowing easy connections from any Thameslink station.

 

[Abpj17]

mr_jrt - ah, but the airport not the council are paying for the 200mn rail link, hence airport parkway not luton town station. This is the same reason why it won’t connect to the town centre instead - tourists/business trying to get flights won’t want to go to the main centre and most of the (passable) hotels are clustered around the airport.

I would imagine EMT customers would prefer stops at the airport rather than town - some for flights; others simply because it’s a better station.

For distance measuring, I thought Marble Arch for the roads? For trains, as someone else mentioned - zone 1 often suffices. Or more practically, the first connection to the circle line - hence St Pancras from the north, and blackfriars from the south.

 

[jopsuk]

whilst busway isn't the best, I'm actually surprised the preferred option isn't to extend it from it's nearby end at Kimpton Road, providing a guided, separate right of way from there all the way into the airport, which would then give an express link from the airport to the Parkway, the town centre and onwards to Dunstable (good for locals working at the airport as well as travellers).

Or convert the busway to tram and do the same

 

[DarloRich]

I don't personally think it makes all that much sense to stop InterCity services at either Luton station, to be honest. A better solution to me would be to stop *all* of them at Bedford, allowing easy connections from any Thameslink station.

but real people wont change and the airport will loose out. It is already easier for me in MK to travel to Birmingham to fly and one of the reasons is the direct, fast, railway link.

I can be sat in the bar at Birmingham having a nice pint in the time it takes me to faff on getting to Luton. The bus can take over an hour and the train is a nightmare form MK.

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair, Luton is probably best accessed from MK by private-hire taxi, and due to the competition it is very cheap to do so.

 

[DarloRich]

To be fair, Luton is probably best accessed from MK by private-hire taxi, and due to the competition it is very cheap to do so.

Agreed - Although I find it is often easier to use the train to Birmingham IF you have a reasonable return time.

PS that X99 coach is either superb or terrible! M1 traffic is the killer.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Agreed - Although I find it is often easier to use the train to Birmingham IF you have a reasonable return time.

PS that X99 coach is either superb or terrible! M1 traffic is the killer.

Indeed. It's perhaps more reliable than it could be because it has something like a 59 minute layover at the MK end (you can often see two together at MKC) but it does get caught badly in motorway traffic on the way to the airport, so while knock-on delays shouldn't be so bad it isn't perfect.

 

[edwin_m]

but real people wont change and the airport will loose out. It is already easier for me in MK to travel to Birmingham to fly and one of the reasons is the direct, fast, railway link.

I can be sat in the bar at Birmingham having a nice pint in the time it takes me to faff on getting to Luton. The bus can take over an hour and the train is a nightmare form MK.

One reason why an East West Rail route via Luton would have picked up more passengers than the one now proposed via Sandy. But evidently this would not have justified the extra cost of a chunk of new route through a hilly area.

 

[pitdiver]

Indeed. It's perhaps more reliable than it could be because it has something like a 59 minute layover at the MK end (you can often see two together at MKC) but it does get caught badly in motorway traffic on the way to the airport, so while knock-on delays shouldn't be so bad it isn't perfect.

Neil, I have never used the x99 as I now live in Flitwick but does it go through Luton town centre or straight down to Jct 10 and come off there?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Neil, I have never used the x99 as I now live in Flitwick but does it go through Luton town centre or straight down to Jct 10 and come off there?

It goes through, and serves, Luton town centre (station).

Indeed, the airport is rather a side affair to its main business, which appears to be transporting warehouse workers between the stop by the Kingston Centre in MK and the first stop off the M1 at junction 11. Oddly, those two stops exist only to make it possible to register it as a local bus service!

 

[kieron]

mr_jrt - ah, but the airport not the council are paying for the 200mn rail link, hence airport parkway not luton town station.

The article says the council (who own the airport, but lease it to a private company) are paying. I couldn't find any more detail of the plans themselves on either the council or airport web sites, though, so it's probably a bit too soon to say anything will actually happen with this.

 

[jayah]

Sounds good. On the rare occasions I've used the bus link, it doesn't act as a wonderful welcome to the UK. I really hope they don't charge for this either.

Personally, I hope they go all out and do something like the Sky Train that connects Düsseldorf airport to the main airport station.

I also cling to the vain hope that it won't be a continuous audio-visual torture like Birmingham. If Emirates are prepared to do that to me for a minute or two at BHX, then I shudder to think what of the multimedia assault that Ryanair could unleash on the poor passengers at Luton, but I think the CIA would be taking notes.

I can't help wondering when confronted with a sign Bus £1.50 how many Luton Airport rail ticket holders pay twice. IMX an awful lot of people are paying for the bus, but nobody who presents their rail ticket seems to pay. Either a lot of people arrive at a gated station without a rail ticket, or I suspect a lot are paying twice for that bus.

There are terminal - gate walks at Gatwick North that are further than Luton PW to Airport. But why oh why even in this age does it cost £200m to fix this???

 

[Bald Rick]

There are terminal - gate walks at Gatwick North that are further than Luton PW to Airport. But why oh why even in this age does it cost £200m to fix this???

Really? It's 1,500m in a straight line from LTN to, err, LTN. I can't believe there's terminal to gate walks of that magnitude at Gatwick. And I'm pretty sure there's travelators at the latter.

£200m is a bit steep, although I imagine it will all be elevated, apart from (presumably) a new tunnel under Taxiway Alpha.

 

[edwin_m]

I imagine it will all be elevated, apart from (presumably) a new tunnel under Taxiway Alpha.

Given the lack of space in the terminal area, I think they'll make that tunnel longer and have an underground terminus there too.

 

[gsnedders]

Really? It's 1,500m in a straight line from LTN to, err, LTN. I can't believe there's terminal to gate walks of that magnitude at Gatwick. And I'm pretty sure there's travelators at the latter.

Gatwick North terminal has the longest distances to the furthest gates of any airport in Europe, from memory, and I recall distance of around a mile being quoted—so yes, I'd believe that! There again, those walks to the gate are all entirely flat, unlike the significant gradients involved at Luton!

 

[edwin_m]

Gatwick North terminal has the longest distances to the furthest gates of any airport in Europe, from memory, and I recall distance of around a mile being quoted—so yes, I'd believe that! There again, those walks to the gate are all entirely flat, unlike the significant gradients involved at Luton!

Also by the time you walk to the gate at Gatwick you will have checked in your hold baggage.

 

[Blamethrower]

Gatwick North terminal has the longest distances to the furthest gates of any airport in Europe, from memory, and I recall distance of around a mile being quoted—so yes, I'd believe that! There again, those walks to the gate are all entirely flat, unlike the significant gradients involved at Luton!

You've never flown easyjet to Amsterdam then?

You land on the 5th runway (which is nearer to Haarlem than Amsterdam), taxi for about 20 minutes and then have to walk the longest distance I can remember.

Done Gatwick loads and never had a long walk

 

[ivanhoe]

You've never flown easyjet to Amsterdam then?

You land on the 5th runway (which is nearer to Haarlem than Amsterdam), taxi for about 20 minutes and then have to walk the longest distance I can remember.

Done Gatwick loads and never had a long walk

I remember flying KLM from Birmingham a few years ago and can confirm your experience. I was connecting with a flight to Milan and the ticket actually stated that it was a 20 minute walk.

 

[hwl]

This telegraph article suggests 1.12miles being the max at Gatwick North but measured from terminal entry to gate:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/travellers-at-Gatwick-walk-1-12-miles-to-board-flight/

Gatwick themselves suggest the max is 835m from leaving check-in area to gate

I had to walk rather more than I was expecting at one point at the North Terminal so I can believe the long walk I think the 53-57 gates are the worst as you walk half the inter terminal transit distance back towards the South terminal after going round the North terminal! some bits of Gatwick are fairly devoid of travolators...

 

[jayah]

Really? It's 1,500m in a straight line from LTN to, err, LTN. I can't believe there's terminal to gate walks of that magnitude at Gatwick. And I'm pretty sure there's travelators at the latter.

£200m is a bit steep, although I imagine it will all be elevated, apart from (presumably) a new tunnel under Taxiway Alpha.

1.12 miles at Gatwick North farthest gate to the terminal entrance. You also have to cross a taxiway, on two huge escalators.