Nah! Luton Airport mate (London Luton Airport (LTN))

Member Name: gothiron

Product:	London Luton Airport (LTN)
Date:	28/09/01 (582 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy to get to, easy to find your way around, good shuttle buses

Disadvantages: parking signs, The M1, Easyjet

All things considered generally, Luton Airport is pretty much fit for purpose. It's got good transport links, rail, coach and near a motorway - it can't be held responsible that the motorway is the M1 and therefore the average travelling time getting there is usually longer than the flight itself. The actual airport is compact and easy for disabled travellers to access (unlike Heathrow) and is well laid out and signed, no more wondering whether you have actually missed your plane because you don't where to look or have sprinted to the loo only to find you need a sherpa to find your way back. No, generally it's fine, it's in particular that niggles me.

For a start, it's branding. London Luton Airport. Lorraine Chase never became famous for chirping "London Luton Airport" when asked which part of paradise she came from, its "Luton", plain simple Luton. No wonder the poor tourists get confused trying to find it on the tube map! I know the same can be said about all the "London" airports other than City, that they aren't actually in London, but it really bugs me that Luton gets the London tag as well. What's so shaming about Luton that it needs additional cosmetic enhancement, or maybe they actually do have a point there!

But the thing that really annoys me is the parking layout, and here I speak from bitter experience. Yes there is heaps of parking, yes it is probably very well sign posted in the bright light of day, it flaming well isn't early in the morning on a particularly foggy day. Not knowing the layout of where the parking is, other than I wanted pre-paid long stay (Hint here chaps, well worth paying for this in advanced rather than coughing up £13 in the short stay if you are going to be longer than 4 hours, £8 for 24hours, ideal for the business traveller, unless the flight is fogged off), I was totally bewildered where to go, mainly because the signs are poorly lit a
nd very ambiguous over exactly where they are pointing.

Luckily one of Luton's assets seems to be the people that actually work there. Full marks to the parking people for not laughing (openly) after I ended up the wrong side of the bus lane and unable to move, and fullmarks to all three of them who kindly gave me directions and advice and then topmarks for the one that actually got in the car and ensured I got to the right place after getting lost again following his mates directions.

The parking operation itself is very slick and quick and I would always now take this option, hand over the ticket, dump the keys with them and take the frequent shuttle bus and fly away to your desired location without a hitch. Unless you fly EasyJet and unless it's foggy, but I can't blame Luton for that, and even then the parking crew was helpful in finding a car that shouldn't have required finding for at least another 8 hours.

So for a regional airport, Luton is fine, if it stopped pretending to be London's 4th Airport (after Stanstead which I can't fault at all) it would be great and if it had better marked car parking it would be perfect!

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