Randomness Guide to London - Differences between Version 3 and Version 2 of Luton Airport
| Version 3 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| == Line 16 == | == Line 16 == |
|
locale='Luton' |
locale='Luton,Outside the M25' |
Luton Airport is 30 miles north of London, closer to the capital than BAA's third London airport, Stansted. It has a single terminal, and the majority of its scheduled flights are budget airlines serving Europe. The bus service from Luton Airport Parkway station takes about 8 minutes, and runs every 10 minutes from 5am to midnight, using air-conditioned bendy busses. The service costs £1, unless you have a through ticket to Luton Airport Terminal (ask for this explicitly, as ticket offices interpret Luton Airport as Luton Airport Parkway). Given that the fastest train from St Pancras takes 20 minutes, total journey time can be less than Stansted's 46 minutes.
The departure terminal is nothing special, with the usual mix of café-bars and shops - Guiness cost £3.10 a "pint" (probably 1/6th head), and a pastrami cheese sauerkraut bagel £3.75. What was notable was that between every retail unit there is a mains socket pair. Unfortunately these aren't near the seating units, so to use them one would have to sit on the floor against the wall, with one's legs sticking out into the (wide) walking area, so no concealing the activity.
On a weekday, 14 of the 70 check-in desks were in use, and only one of the 5 departure gates in the cluster, giving the airport a spacious, stress-free feeling. However, Nick suspects that it's a different story at weekends during the holiday season.
List all versions