mee

I flew out of LTN earlier this week, and was amazed to see a flight on the departure board, as follows:

07:00 EZY9004 to London Gatwick

I gather that this is a positioning flight - which I fully understand. What I don't get is why it shows on the board? I can't imagine EZY selling a LTN-LGW route, nor can I imagine anyone choosing to fly it!

Any ideas?

-- Mike

Andy33

Probably just a mistake by the person in charge of the departures board. The flight will be in the computer as it does exist, but they forgot to edit it out of what appears on the board.

lhrsfo

It's probably the easiest way of getting from LTN to LGW.

alanR

Would have thought the shuttle bus to Luton Airport Parkway then direct train to Gatwick (total 1h45m) rather than the joys of airlines & airports these days

stut

Probably so, even with the scenic tour of South London you get at the moment...

Ber2dca

Even though it's a mistake, it does kind of illustrate how mistaken the blissfully ignorant foreigner would be who assumes a LGW to LTN transfer is like switching from say O'Hare to Midway or JFK to LGA. The two airports are 50 miles/80 km apart as the crow flies (over 70 miles by road) yet both supposedly are "London" airports - which is actually further apart than even LAX and SNA.

mee

Amazing how the boundaries of London have grown - from "London Oxford Airport" in the west to "London Southend Airport" in the east!

-- Mike

mee

Tricky one -- its usually not quite a direct train, but needs a change (same platform) at St Pancras

JohnnyColombia

Turns out there were at least 15 EZY9004 flights yesterday and lots of them have some exotic destinations. The last one was Tenerife Sur to Naples.

I wonder if they are ad hoc and if not why would then not sell the route? I am sure a couple of people would fancy Tenerife Sur to Naples. And why can they not sell them as mystery tours? I am also sure a handful of backpackers in Tenerife would pay 30€ to not know where they are going.

Admittedly, would suck a bit if you got your sun tan lotion all ready and flew from Luton to Gatwick.

I think it would be quite handy to fly Luton to Gatwick outside of a mystery tour, especially if you arrived from the origin and actually wanted Gatwick rather than Luton, or were in Luton and wanted to fly onwards on the same plane to wherever it is going to from Gatwick.

Must be tops 20 minutes by plane and I suspect they don't have time to go above 7000ft. Can they fly straight across London? (in which case it is a sight seeing tour) Or do they risk crashing into the planes making a westbound approach to LHR if they do that?

Southend is officially part of the London Airport System but Oxford is just jumping on the bandwagon. Like Lydd Airport - London Ashford

alanR

3 direct trains per hour at xx:05, xx:35 & xx:55

fartoomanyusers

lhrsfo

Rather faster than driving from LTN to LGW - or even taking the train.

UKtravelbear

look at the flight routing on flight aware - you won't see much of London if anything as it flies well to the east of the M25.

Would be an expensive flight. £ 13 alone on APD plus the airport fees.

And they likely only know about these a couple of days in advance The last one between LTN-LGW was 17th April.

fartoomanyusers