On 9 June, 08:37, Roland Perry wrote:

London's Second airport, which just grew there by accident. Stansted,
being the official "Third airport" was the result of extensive public
enquiries etc, to satisfy the need for more capacity for London.

Just like the third runway at Heathrow is/was at the moment.

So what about Luton? It came to be known in the '70s and '80s as the
home of charter flights for cheap holidays in Spain etc., but what
were its origins?

I can't help wondering if the move from Gatwick to Heathrow by
Continental a couple of years ago was related to the forced sale of
Gatwick by BAA. Are BAA offering some sort of incentive to airlines
to move to the airports which it will continue to own? It would make
sense from their point of view to expand Heathrow as much as
possible. I've only flown once sine the move, and having to go to
Heathrow is a real pain for me.

I know that when the new terminal was built at Stanstead enough land
was available to allow it to be expanded to about twice its original
size. Is there scope to increase the capacity of that airport? If
two very short sections of railway hadn't closed then trains could
have run directly to Stanstead from both Luton, or at least the
airport parkway station, and Gatwick for those with connecting flights
from other airports. Luton would still be possible, but Gatwick
wouldn't.

Heathrow is still horrible to get to. The Underground takes ages, and
doesn't really have the space for luggage. The Express is expensive,
and only goes to Paddington, as do the Connect trains. Neither of
these services serve all terminals. The express Airbus routes from
central London no longer run, the X26 From Croydon does, but doesn't
serve 4 or 5, and the fare on the Underground from Hatton Cross to 4
is more than that on the bus all the way from Croydon. I'm not sure
which other bus/coach services still operate to Heathrow. Heathrow is
already too spread out, needing to take a train between termini rather
than the typical airport transit thing found elsewhere, but of course,
if you spread the flights out to other airports then you make this
even worse. I don't know what the answer is, other than to travel
less, as we used to.