Luton Airport

Sadly it is my nearest airport and is used by cut price airlines - and this shows. Expensive drop off charges and it is no longer free to take the bus to Luton Airport Parkway. Only useful tip - use the free short term parking for both arrivals and departures and validate your parking ticket at the exit from the arrivals hall within the "free hour".

Luton is an acceptable budget airport. The fast trains to London St Pancras can be as little as 20 minutes and the shuttle bus was fine when it got going. Paying for the bus transfer seemed voluntary. Security was ok in terms of speed but there were vicious announcements about carrying only one item of baggage and purchasing clear plastic bags. The waiting area is fine but not exciting and limited eating options. The worst aspects of the airport are the lack of seats and space at the gates and the long corridors with budget plastic signs that feel like hospitals.

For some reason the authorities at Luton have denied passengers any views too see aircraft. Are windows really such an unreasonable demand. Watching planes taxi and park is one pleasure of airline travel to be taken for granted and keeps the kiddies quiet. Luton is a simple and compact airport to navigate. Nothing special in the aesthetic but hardly offensive like the thoroughly vile LGW. Aviance lounge pay as you go - good value and well stocked. Lots of retail and catering. Luton is okay as low fare hubs go but nothing more than that.

Over the years I have flown from Luton I have witnessed a sad demise from what was once a nice little airport to what is now a budget orientated airport and it shows security at anytime of the day is long and slow with some unhappy looking staff although there is a 'fast track security' lane before the main screening area which will charge you £3 for the privilege also the management have now cottoned on to charging £1 for two re-sealable plastic bags for gels etc - also the drop off charge of £1 just about puts the icing on the cake with passengers being dropped off on the approach road adding to the congestion to avoid paying the drop off fee. If you are flying from Luton with Ryanair the airline uses gates 1 to 3 which are the furthest gates from the departure area here is some advice - if you want a refreshment then there is a nice little bar area next to these gates so instead of using the departure area restaurants and to save your legs then use this bar and wait for your flight.

Luton airport has the feel of an airport for cut-price airlines. Since it's so far out of the city and doesn't have a large volume of passengers trains are not very frequent and not fast (compared with LHR for example). The bus to the airport was also late going whenever they can wait till they get a full bus. The airport is strict with the 1 bag policy (meaning laptop bag counts as a bag as does a handbag I'm told). All other airports I've been to are more lenient on this policy. On the plus side security was quite brisk; they had a lot of people to process but had many scanner gates open and people were moving fast. Airside there are some food and goods shops to keep you busy before the flight. I will still avoid flying this airport unless I have plenty of time to throw away and money is tight.

On 3rd Sept 09 at 6:00am the traffic was queuing down to the IBIS hotel. The roundabout heading into the airport was chaos with cars from another direction trying to join the queue to the airport drop off zone. At this point it was a complete bottleneck. All of this is caused by a planning nightmare. Only two small drop off areas are open. There is an other area set aside for customers who have pre-booked but I guess even they have to queue to get in. The two lanes open only have spaces for only about 40 cars and cannot cope with the number of cars arriving and you are charge a £1 even if you are there 10secs. A third area remained closed with a barrier down. Finally some planner has had the brilliant idea of making the outward traffic cross the incoming traffic and has put traffic lights to delay things further. I can only say I found Luton ran smoother when there was a bigger temporary drop off area which was free and the whole place had miles of traffic cones going into the airport. The planners need to get their heads together and sort this out for the passengers rather than money making schemes and preferably not the same planners.

The new arrangements for drop-off at Luton Airport are a disaster. I have just arrived at 05.30 and the queue of traffic waiting to get in to the "drop off zone" stretches back to the Ibis Hotel and is causing chaos at roundabouts. Now you have to drop off further away from the terminal than you used to - and you are charged £1 (watch for that to go up) for the privilege. Luton is the airport equivalent of Ryanair with their grubby little money-making schemes (luggage trolley charge "fast track" security for a charge). The escalators to Departures aren't working - I guess they're about to impose a charge for their use. Otherwise it's not a bad little airport!

I must report that the early traffic jams remain as deplorable as he described. I noted a sad trail of pax (with heavy luggage) who had been obliged to bail out of cars and taxis - an unnecessarily stressful experience for all. I am a regular user of LTN taking the Green Line coach service and had never suffered such chronic delays on the approach to the airport not even while the recent road construction was under way. I advise anyone with an early morning flight to allow an extra 30-40 minutes to negotiate that final congested mile.

Hopeless mess of an airport . Traffic chaos caused by simply atrocious new traffic flows around drop off mean you can wait 30 mins or more to get up the approach road when it used to be pretty smooth flowing even on the busiest Monday morning. The front area of the airport is choked with secondary smoke from smokers who are allowed to use the paved and covered areas in front of ALL of the entrances.

I recently needed to take two friends to Luton Airport for a flight about 7a.m. so check-in about 6 a.m. We got to within about a mile of the Airport by about 5:45 a.m. and encountered a solid traffic jam. When we finally reached the drop-off area it became apparent that the jam was caused by people trying to enter the drop -off area and being refused entry. I am told by others that this is a common occurrence and considering the amount of new road development that has taken place recently is inexcusable. y friends caught their flight by the skin of their teeth (and by walking some of the way carrying their luggage) but there must have been dozens of people who didnt