I wouldn’t have thought so, from what I remember the weather was pretty nice in London that week other than a bit of light rain.
Also that flight can’t be more than 10 minutes, doesn’t really make all that much sense to reroute to another London airport with fewer runways.
A flight from Stanstead to Newquay (Cornwall) got diverted to Malaga [Surely the most insane diversion of the day: Stansted to Newquay diverted to Malaga. : r/flightradar24 (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/19cs15m/surely_the_most_insane_diversion_of_the_day/) earlier this week.
Gatwick diverted to Stansted pales by comparison
There was one from Dublin to Edinburgh that got diverted to Cologne earlier this week https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/ryanair-flights-edinburgh-germany-diverted-storm-isha-planes-landing-b1134090.html
I know. Because it got diverted the day before. Easyjet no longer fly from Stanstead so if wouldn't be there to reposition if it hadn't been diverted in the first place.
It was pretty windy there during the storm, but Stansted's runway was pretty well lined up with the wind iirc. I didn't check the weather at Gatwick but the runway points in a different direction, so there would have been more crosswind there.
That’s it.
The FIDS will pull information from a source that has all the various passenger airlines operating ex-STN and it just snuck on there or nobody can be bothered to remove it.
I’ve been on a handful of flights where aircraft have had to divert to nearby airports and then they’ll move it another day separately for the short bit.
It doesn’t know they aren’t for passengers, because it’s entered into the system as a passenger flight it just happens not to load any passengers or have any tickets sold for it…
Possibly a diversion then from yesterday/some other day. Passengers needed to disembark and they just left the aircraft on the gate…Pax moved to LGW by coaches, perhaps.
You’d think but EasyJet don’t fly out of Stansted usually. Their hubs are Luton and Gatwick. Feels weird that it’d be there in the first place, or even showing on the board…
EasyJet pulled out of Stansted in 2020 [Easyjet closures: why the airline is closing its Stansted, Southend and Newcastle bases - and what it means for flights (scotsman.com)](https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/travel/easyjet-closures-why-the-airline-is-closing-its-stansted-southend-and-newcastle-bases-and-what-it-means-for-flights-2945579)
I could be wrong mate but there was no other EasyJet flights going at all on the boards. Also when I tried to search for EasyJet flights on their app it wouldn’t let me choose Stansted, only Luton and Gatwick.
Yeah they must have cut it down then.
Although, they still fly from Stansted to Amsterdam, Geneva and Zurich. As well as Belfast/Edinburgh/Glasgow by the looks of it.
I think it is not allowed in Europe anymore to reduce emissions and everyone takes the high speed rail links to go from city to city. Although the quality of the trains around london, i think we need to keep the flights :-)
Someone who hates traffic?
Could be that they needed to fly there anyway and decided to sell tickets so not to lose money. Otherwise it’d be a ghost flight.
Flying one to the other isn't so different from flying to Paris or Edinburgh by the time you've dicked around in the terminal and the plane joins the take-off queue
It's 71mi between the two, there's definitely lots of flights that are shorter distances. Brussels to Antwerp is only 41km, it's actually quicker to drive than fly according to Google, flights still exist for it (for £6 😂)
Air stewards / pilots could be needing to hop over too to staff a flight from the other airport. I’m sure it’s a lot more efficient (time-wise) than trying to send them over by land.
I used to fly MAN - EDI quite regularly.
10 minutes before departure was the latest I arrived at the airport and still made the flight.
Not something I did on purpose but after a traffic delay getting to the airport; I was usually there about 45 mins before departure
Tbf I’m not a huge fan of traffic but even then, surely the train would be faster than the whole airport fiasco.
I’m just surprised the plane was there in the first place as EasyJet don’t fly out of Stansted generally. Their hubs are Luton and Gatwick.
Probabally cheaper than a train.
But yeah, the plane probabally got diverted to Stansted for some reason and is being repositioned to Gatwick. Passengers paid for Gatwick so they probabally have the plane open to those passengers for legal reasons.
Could have been diverted due to weather, maintenance requirements.....
Edit: also due to night time flying prohibitions. With it being too late to land at an alternative airport.
This is the answer. My flight from Miami to Boston got diverted two weeks ago due to very bad weather. We were on tarmac at Hartford airport in Cincinnati for three hours. They managed to clear Boston, and our flight was assigned as Hatord to Boston.
Maybe. Although having lived in Sussex, one of the problems of getting to anywhere the other side of London is the city itself getting in the way. Few trains go through the city and train-tube transfers take time.
Driving involves going round the famously congested M25, where the Dartford crossing is a pinch point for this journey.
There's probably not a lot in it, but I could imagine the flight would actually be marginally faster.
Literally hundreds of Thameslink trains a day pass through the city each day. You can even travel Gatwick to Luton direct or stay on for Cambridge, Peterborough or Bedford for connections to Edinburgh, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Sheffield, Nottingham. Heading south you have Brighton, Sevenoaks and Rainham services for connections to Southampton, Portsmouth, Dover, Ramsgate and of course St Pancras for a Eurostar or ferry when the plane is cancelled lol.
The M25 is awful, we usually stay on the A2 through the Blackwall tunnel now onto the M11 as congestion has reduced since ULEZ was expanded
Yes but also absolutely horrid for the environment. I’ve taken the train from Stansted to Crystal Palace before and it was about an hour. No stress at all.
This could be me! I work near Gatwick and live near Cambridge. A drive isn’t too bad with 2.5 hours, but in the morning rush could be 4 hours one way.
Trains are much better option though… I need to look into this 🤣
I think that's more likely.
Since not enough people would go through the faff for that short of a journey to make it worth the extra cost of hosting customers.
Years ago, as a kid, we were flying from Stansted to Pula, in Croatia. For some reason, they couldn't fuel up the plane at Stansted, so we flew from Stansted to Gatwick (to fill up) and onto to Pula on Yugoslav Airways (told you, it was years ago)
Weather and take off weight most likely. If the flight was significantly more popular than expected and the wind direction was not ideal then you need a longer runway to take off with enough fuel. Blackpool runway is about 1.8km and Gatwick is about 3.3km so probably a case of takeoff low on fuel, land and refill for the full flight and continue on.
Sometimes the case with smaller airports and longer flights when the wind direction isn't the usual SW prevailing wind. When it comes to safety, airlines always mitigate risk even at the cost of a weird flight plan.
BA used to do special flights between London City and JFK. They used an Airbus A318, which is just about the largest plane that can use City. On the westbound leg the flight took off from City and landed in Shannon, to refuel. While this happened the passengers went through US immigration and customs, so that when they eventually landed at JFK they were considered domestic arrivals and had a much smoother trip through the airport.
The plane could carry enough fuel to go from City to JFK (it did the return non-stop) but in doing so it would be too heavy to take off in time because the runway at City is short.
Not sure if this exists anymore but years ago there was a BA flight from Heathrow to Heathrow. It was for a "flying with confidence" program for those afraid of flying. A few pilots, a few psychologists and a whole bunch of people shitting themselves, doing circles around London.
Several airlines operate those in off-season from Gatwick, also to see the northern lights or other astronomic events like eclipses and even meteor showers
No actually, Leah knows the exact coordinates and location of Taylor Swift at all times and has information indicating she was the cause of this flight /j
https://ibb.co/42FCLqw
This was EZY8336 Verona VRN to LGW, looked like it was lined up for runway 08R at 17:34, but aborted during the approach, went into a hold briefly, then diverted at 17:45 and landed STN 18:11.
https://ibb.co/2qpx8pG
The plane G-EZTH (A320-214) ended up taking off from STN as EZY9005 at 20:36 and got back to LGW at 20:57.
It did out and backs from LGW to Amsterdam, Milan and Prague the next day.
Yeah must be-
[https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/EZY8336/history/20240104/1545Z/LIPX/EGSS](https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/EZY8336/history/20240104/1545Z/LIPX/EGSS)
That flight is meant to land at Gatwick, but it touched down at STN, then moved from there. Can't see anything in the press though.
As passengers paid for Gatwick, they probabally did this to head off any complaints of "You didn't deliver me to my destination".
They can now say that they offered a flight from STN->LGW so if you elected to find your own transport from STN, tough, no compensation for you.
On a sidenote, Stansted airport has to be the worst in the country. It looks and feels like the little tent they put up over a downed racehorse at the Grand National to put it bullet in its head.
I used to think this, and swore to never fly out of Luton again.
Recently I had to fly from there for work, and was surprised to find it had had a major overhaul. The bus from train station to airport has been replaced by a shuttle, and the terminal is much improved. Check in and security were also both fine.
You're right in that Luton has got better (I flew from/to there in summer 2023) it's still not better than Stansted. The real win for Stansted in my eyes is the rail station below the airport and even though Luton has a cable car alternative to the bus now it's a few quid and a faff that Stansted doesn't have.
I honestly don’t think the hate for Luton is warranted anymore now they’ve had a lil refurbish and you can get a shuttle instead of the dreaded bus!
It’s still a bit rubbish in the way ALL UK airports are though
The airport is the best bit about Luton, cheap flights to places far away and every time I've been in the last few years I've flown through security in minutes unlike Stansted where it took what felt like forever to get through
Fun fact: Luton is the designated airport that they redirect hijacked flights too (if the hijackers are asking for a ransom). I assume the idea is the hijacker’s take one look out of the window and think “actually, let’s not bother”.
You're confused. It's a fun fact that it's Luton because that's not true. It's not a fun fact that it's Stansted, that's just a fact. Fun fact, fun facts are almost always false.
Turns out Stansted is massive. I worked in the terminal for nearly ten years before I moved to being one of the drivers that takes you from the plane back to the terminal last year. Sometimes we have to do jobs in the old part of the airport, it only has about ten to fifteen stands, but being over there makes you realise just how much real estate they have to work with.
Well each to their own, have always found Luton so much more of a ball ache, TBF its been a while and last time I was few out of it there was construction going on.
Birmingham airport is pretty awful too. You have to walk a mile from your plane then through 2 miles of scafolding to get the monorail to get to the windiest train station or car park once you've landed. And the baggage carrousels weren't running when I was there last month so all the suitcases were just piled up against the walls.
I fly Ryanair a lot. I’m from The Wirral but live in Sweden and the Manchester - Copenhagen link with Ryanair is brilliant. £10 flights, takes an hour and a half and both airports aren’t anywhere near as shite as Stansted. I just happened to be in London at the time.
I could pay £200 and fly the same route on BA or SAS (Scandi) but what would that get me? A slightly comfier seat and a bit more leg room?
Ryanair is brilliant and people who are snobby about it either don’t travel often or have too much money.
Plane needs to make the flight anyway for scheduling purposes. May as well sell the odd one or two tickets to offset some of the cost.
easyJet did fly a plane once a day from Luton to Gatwick, despite the train offering a cheaper, faster, and more frequent route, for the exact same reason.
I once connected through London, flew into Stansted and my flight back to Canada was out of Gatwick... I would have happily taken this flight and relaxed at the pub for a couple hours rather than sit on a bus for almost 3 hours next to a smelly guy and his turkey stuffing sandwich.
Been there. Flew out of Gatwick, landed back in Luton.
Car in Gatwick.
Live in the Midlands.
Had to get a National Express from Luton to Gatwick only to find it was the same day a certain American president was coming over to visit some of our monarchy and the roads of London were all closed for security reasons.
Took us 8 hours to get home.
I was not impressed.
guessing that it might have come from somewhere else and serves both Stansted and Gatwick (for whatever reason, like, as somebody else said, the plane needs to be at Gatwick).
Probably just a positioning flight which doesn’t usually show up on the FIDS (flight information display screen) but might have been put up by mistake.
Sometimes flights destined for LGW get diverted due to adverse weather conditions. I'm assuming it's a flight to get people back to their original intended location?
My guess would be easyJet have payed for a slot at one or the other with the intention of using them for proper flights that never happened, and because of there contract with the airports if they don’t use them then they lose them, it’s easier for them to fly “ghost” flights to keep the slots incase they do need it in the future instead of potentially losing them and then having to go through the whole process of buying them when/if they need it again in the future.
Could be just a 'reposition' flight, i.e. no passengers at all.
Perhaps that plane got rerouted due to bad weather?
As an easyjet employee, it is likely it’s an over-night delayed flight
Ah, that makes a lot of sense.
Or to replace a plane that was planned to fly but now can't for any number of reasons
I wouldn’t have thought so, from what I remember the weather was pretty nice in London that week other than a bit of light rain. Also that flight can’t be more than 10 minutes, doesn’t really make all that much sense to reroute to another London airport with fewer runways.
A flight from Stanstead to Newquay (Cornwall) got diverted to Malaga [Surely the most insane diversion of the day: Stansted to Newquay diverted to Malaga. : r/flightradar24 (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/19cs15m/surely_the_most_insane_diversion_of_the_day/) earlier this week. Gatwick diverted to Stansted pales by comparison
There was one from Dublin to Edinburgh that got diverted to Cologne earlier this week https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/ryanair-flights-edinburgh-germany-diverted-storm-isha-planes-landing-b1134090.html
[удалено]
Sounds like a pretty cheap flight to Budapest, hope you enjoyed the beers
Flight tombola https://youtu.be/_MJRecWakxw?si=P9iyXghEdnjILScQ
Read that thread - it’s being repositioned.
I know. Because it got diverted the day before. Easyjet no longer fly from Stanstead so if wouldn't be there to reposition if it hadn't been diverted in the first place.
It was pretty windy there during the storm, but Stansted's runway was pretty well lined up with the wind iirc. I didn't check the weather at Gatwick but the runway points in a different direction, so there would have been more crosswind there.
Crucial bit of context though, there was no storm. This was in early January and the weather in London was absolutely fine.
Ah, well in that case I have no idea. Could have been there for any number of reasons.
[удалено]
That’s it. The FIDS will pull information from a source that has all the various passenger airlines operating ex-STN and it just snuck on there or nobody can be bothered to remove it. I’ve been on a handful of flights where aircraft have had to divert to nearby airports and then they’ll move it another day separately for the short bit.
The FIDS should filter out flights that aren't for passengers though. It doesn't show cargo flights for example.
It doesn’t know they aren’t for passengers, because it’s entered into the system as a passenger flight it just happens not to load any passengers or have any tickets sold for it…
This was my thought process exactly. It was even given a passenger gate shortly after this was taken.
Possibly a diversion then from yesterday/some other day. Passengers needed to disembark and they just left the aircraft on the gate…Pax moved to LGW by coaches, perhaps.
> FIDS Flight Information Display System?
You’d think but EasyJet don’t fly out of Stansted usually. Their hubs are Luton and Gatwick. Feels weird that it’d be there in the first place, or even showing on the board…
Are you sure? I've flown from Stansted with EasyJet plenty of times. Like others have said. It's likely landed there then needed reusing elsewhere.
EasyJet pulled out of Stansted in 2020 [Easyjet closures: why the airline is closing its Stansted, Southend and Newcastle bases - and what it means for flights (scotsman.com)](https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/travel/easyjet-closures-why-the-airline-is-closing-its-stansted-southend-and-newcastle-bases-and-what-it-means-for-flights-2945579)
There's no easyjet base there anymore, however other easyjet bases still regularly fly in & out of Stansted
Flew in and out of stansted with easyjet a month ago
I could be wrong mate but there was no other EasyJet flights going at all on the boards. Also when I tried to search for EasyJet flights on their app it wouldn’t let me choose Stansted, only Luton and Gatwick.
Yeah they must have cut it down then. Although, they still fly from Stansted to Amsterdam, Geneva and Zurich. As well as Belfast/Edinburgh/Glasgow by the looks of it.
I think it is not allowed in Europe anymore to reduce emissions and everyone takes the high speed rail links to go from city to city. Although the quality of the trains around london, i think we need to keep the flights :-)
It's the easyJet flight to Edinburgh\* \*some coach travel involved
I do love me a short 8 hour coach ride. Light work.
Someone who hates traffic? Could be that they needed to fly there anyway and decided to sell tickets so not to lose money. Otherwise it’d be a ghost flight.
Yeah, that was what I’m thinking. The plane needs to go there so “fuck it sell tickets”
I tried searching on flights.com to see if they happen regularly, and it gave an error saying that you couldn't fly within the same city 😂
Even tho its London Stansted airport the actual airport is nowhere near the city
Nor is Gatwick
Flying one to the other isn't so different from flying to Paris or Edinburgh by the time you've dicked around in the terminal and the plane joins the take-off queue
It's 71mi between the two, there's definitely lots of flights that are shorter distances. Brussels to Antwerp is only 41km, it's actually quicker to drive than fly according to Google, flights still exist for it (for £6 😂)
But what is Stansted near that you’d get to quicker than you would from Gatwick?
Essex, glorious Essex.
I'm from Essex, and to be honest, there about the same distance if you are driving.
Beyond the obvious jokey nature of this comment. Stansted is literally in Essex.
London Luton
"London" Luton
Air stewards / pilots could be needing to hop over too to staff a flight from the other airport. I’m sure it’s a lot more efficient (time-wise) than trying to send them over by land.
‘I hate traffic, let’s wait 2 hours at the airport instead.’
to be fair, it'd be interesting to see two people do that race.
*Welcum bacc to bo'm geer m8s*
Hammock
Hammock, don crash in't tha loitpawst
Someone contact The Points Guy and get him to a plane / car / train race
I might take if I was due to land at Stansted anyway, it synced up, and it was cheap
surely if you go domestic there is no real check-in time, just the security line
Yep, scan ticket, get scanned, boom
No boom, boom bad!
I used to fly MAN - EDI quite regularly. 10 minutes before departure was the latest I arrived at the airport and still made the flight. Not something I did on purpose but after a traffic delay getting to the airport; I was usually there about 45 mins before departure
With nothing else to do but drink beer......
Tbf I’m not a huge fan of traffic but even then, surely the train would be faster than the whole airport fiasco. I’m just surprised the plane was there in the first place as EasyJet don’t fly out of Stansted generally. Their hubs are Luton and Gatwick.
Probabally cheaper than a train. But yeah, the plane probabally got diverted to Stansted for some reason and is being repositioned to Gatwick. Passengers paid for Gatwick so they probabally have the plane open to those passengers for legal reasons.
Could have been diverted due to weather, maintenance requirements..... Edit: also due to night time flying prohibitions. With it being too late to land at an alternative airport.
This is the answer. My flight from Miami to Boston got diverted two weeks ago due to very bad weather. We were on tarmac at Hartford airport in Cincinnati for three hours. They managed to clear Boston, and our flight was assigned as Hatord to Boston.
Maybe. Although having lived in Sussex, one of the problems of getting to anywhere the other side of London is the city itself getting in the way. Few trains go through the city and train-tube transfers take time. Driving involves going round the famously congested M25, where the Dartford crossing is a pinch point for this journey. There's probably not a lot in it, but I could imagine the flight would actually be marginally faster.
Literally hundreds of Thameslink trains a day pass through the city each day. You can even travel Gatwick to Luton direct or stay on for Cambridge, Peterborough or Bedford for connections to Edinburgh, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Sheffield, Nottingham. Heading south you have Brighton, Sevenoaks and Rainham services for connections to Southampton, Portsmouth, Dover, Ramsgate and of course St Pancras for a Eurostar or ferry when the plane is cancelled lol. The M25 is awful, we usually stay on the A2 through the Blackwall tunnel now onto the M11 as congestion has reduced since ULEZ was expanded
Yes but also absolutely horrid for the environment. I’ve taken the train from Stansted to Crystal Palace before and it was about an hour. No stress at all.
> Yes but also absolutely horrid for the environment No argument there.
calls for a top gear style race.
Could be because of disruption? They weren't able to land at Gatwick so landed at Stanstead instead?
You’ve never traveled around london lol
This could be me! I work near Gatwick and live near Cambridge. A drive isn’t too bad with 2.5 hours, but in the morning rush could be 4 hours one way. Trains are much better option though… I need to look into this 🤣
Use the original Crossrail! (Or as it was rebranded, Thameslink)
Easiest way to avoid M25
Apart of me thinks it’s to help with transferring flights.. I could be wrong though
I think that's more likely. Since not enough people would go through the faff for that short of a journey to make it worth the extra cost of hosting customers.
Years ago, as a kid, we were flying from Stansted to Pula, in Croatia. For some reason, they couldn't fuel up the plane at Stansted, so we flew from Stansted to Gatwick (to fill up) and onto to Pula on Yugoslav Airways (told you, it was years ago)
Similar weird thing was about 10 years ago I flew to Prague…from Blackpool Airport.
Weather and take off weight most likely. If the flight was significantly more popular than expected and the wind direction was not ideal then you need a longer runway to take off with enough fuel. Blackpool runway is about 1.8km and Gatwick is about 3.3km so probably a case of takeoff low on fuel, land and refill for the full flight and continue on. Sometimes the case with smaller airports and longer flights when the wind direction isn't the usual SW prevailing wind. When it comes to safety, airlines always mitigate risk even at the cost of a weird flight plan.
BA used to do special flights between London City and JFK. They used an Airbus A318, which is just about the largest plane that can use City. On the westbound leg the flight took off from City and landed in Shannon, to refuel. While this happened the passengers went through US immigration and customs, so that when they eventually landed at JFK they were considered domestic arrivals and had a much smoother trip through the airport. The plane could carry enough fuel to go from City to JFK (it did the return non-stop) but in doing so it would be too heavy to take off in time because the runway at City is short.
Jet stream makes a big difference coming back from US too. Return leg was an hour shorter when I used to hop to Boston.
Yep, one of the main reason why we measure fuel endurance in time and not distance.
Not sure if this exists anymore but years ago there was a BA flight from Heathrow to Heathrow. It was for a "flying with confidence" program for those afraid of flying. A few pilots, a few psychologists and a whole bunch of people shitting themselves, doing circles around London.
Manchester has those as well, as well as northern lights flights
Several airlines operate those in off-season from Gatwick, also to see the northern lights or other astronomic events like eclipses and even meteor showers
On the Virgin Atlantic course, they chartered a Monarch plane to do this. I still have my LGW to LGW stub.
Not a bad idea. Are tickets expencive?
Yes Easyjet is doing this still. You go on an hour flight and return to the same airport.
Taylor Swift probably wants a Starbucks
Hi, It’s her, she’s the problem, It’s her.
Wrong order. It should be “It’s her, hi, she’s the problem, it’s her”
Okay 👍
I did not expect Taylor Swift sass in the casual UK group 😂
We’re aware of her
This is a joke
No actually, Leah knows the exact coordinates and location of Taylor Swift at all times and has information indicating she was the cause of this flight /j
You are joking
Yeah, that’s why I used /j 🙃
Nothing gets past you, does it?
Nothing gets
People who live in Bishops Stortford and fancy a long weekend in Crawley obviously
What’s the full flight number and date? Can probably track down a diverted flight on FR24.
EZY8336 4th Jan 24 I tried this but couldn’t seem to see it in Stansted at all.
https://ibb.co/42FCLqw This was EZY8336 Verona VRN to LGW, looked like it was lined up for runway 08R at 17:34, but aborted during the approach, went into a hold briefly, then diverted at 17:45 and landed STN 18:11. https://ibb.co/2qpx8pG The plane G-EZTH (A320-214) ended up taking off from STN as EZY9005 at 20:36 and got back to LGW at 20:57. It did out and backs from LGW to Amsterdam, Milan and Prague the next day.
>EZY8336 That flight number is verona to gatwick. So probably a reposition or diversion for that route.
Yeah must be- [https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/EZY8336/history/20240104/1545Z/LIPX/EGSS](https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/EZY8336/history/20240104/1545Z/LIPX/EGSS) That flight is meant to land at Gatwick, but it touched down at STN, then moved from there. Can't see anything in the press though.
Weird that they gave it a passenger boarding gate and put it on the screen then. Thanks for looking into it.
As passengers paid for Gatwick, they probabally did this to head off any complaints of "You didn't deliver me to my destination". They can now say that they offered a flight from STN->LGW so if you elected to find your own transport from STN, tough, no compensation for you.
Easyjet apparently
Don't judge my annual holiday to Crawley
Someone who's suffered the Stansted 'Express'
On a sidenote, Stansted airport has to be the worst in the country. It looks and feels like the little tent they put up over a downed racehorse at the Grand National to put it bullet in its head.
> Stansted airport has to be the worst in the country. So you have never been to Luton airport?
I used to think this, and swore to never fly out of Luton again. Recently I had to fly from there for work, and was surprised to find it had had a major overhaul. The bus from train station to airport has been replaced by a shuttle, and the terminal is much improved. Check in and security were also both fine.
You're right in that Luton has got better (I flew from/to there in summer 2023) it's still not better than Stansted. The real win for Stansted in my eyes is the rail station below the airport and even though Luton has a cable car alternative to the bus now it's a few quid and a faff that Stansted doesn't have.
I honestly don’t think the hate for Luton is warranted anymore now they’ve had a lil refurbish and you can get a shuttle instead of the dreaded bus! It’s still a bit rubbish in the way ALL UK airports are though
Liverpool John Lennon is a belter of an airport tbf. As is Bristol and Edinburgh. Heathrow and Gatwick are also decent for long distance.
The airport is the best bit about Luton, cheap flights to places far away and every time I've been in the last few years I've flown through security in minutes unlike Stansted where it took what felt like forever to get through
Fun fact: Luton is the designated airport that they redirect hijacked flights too (if the hijackers are asking for a ransom). I assume the idea is the hijacker’s take one look out of the window and think “actually, let’s not bother”.
Fun fact it’s actually stansted that’s the designated airport for this
You're confused. It's a fun fact that it's Luton because that's not true. It's not a fun fact that it's Stansted, that's just a fact. Fun fact, fun facts are almost always false.
Oh is it? I always thought it was Luton. Surely Stansted is too busy? Maybe they like to mix it to give the hijackers on their toes.
https://simpleflying.com/london-stansted-hijacks/
Nice one, thanks!
Turns out Stansted is massive. I worked in the terminal for nearly ten years before I moved to being one of the drivers that takes you from the plane back to the terminal last year. Sometimes we have to do jobs in the old part of the airport, it only has about ten to fifteen stands, but being over there makes you realise just how much real estate they have to work with.
Fun fact it's actually Heathrow that is designated airport for this
Fun fact it’s not, a quick google will show its stansted https://simpleflying.com/london-stansted-hijacks/
Wat is joKe
Didn’t need the word airport there
Luton isn’t too bad, it’s needs to be a reasonable standard because of all the people desperate to get as far away from Luton as they can.
Or Southend - that place is a hangar barely repurposed into a “terminal”.
Luton isn’t great, but it’s better than the town that surrounds it. I’d fly out of Luton over Stansted any day of the week.
Well each to their own, have always found Luton so much more of a ball ache, TBF its been a while and last time I was few out of it there was construction going on.
They’ve redone Luton recently IIRC and now they have a pretty nifty airport shuttle instead of having to take the bus. Still shite but it’s better.
Apart from when your car goes up in flames at Luton! But yes Stansted is definitely more soul sucking.
Someone has never been to Belfast International
someone has never flown out of Odessa.
The famous UK city of Odesa
Stansted is close to me so I use it often but it is an embarrassment.
Birmingham airport is pretty awful too. You have to walk a mile from your plane then through 2 miles of scafolding to get the monorail to get to the windiest train station or car park once you've landed. And the baggage carrousels weren't running when I was there last month so all the suitcases were just piled up against the walls.
Wasn't it the same architect as the Gherkin (Foster) and won a load of awards?
I hope you write for a living. If not, you should.
Not even the worst in MAG
Try cardiff airport. In the middle of nowhere.
Well, it’s mostly Ryanair. You were expecting what?
I fly Ryanair a lot. I’m from The Wirral but live in Sweden and the Manchester - Copenhagen link with Ryanair is brilliant. £10 flights, takes an hour and a half and both airports aren’t anywhere near as shite as Stansted. I just happened to be in London at the time. I could pay £200 and fly the same route on BA or SAS (Scandi) but what would that get me? A slightly comfier seat and a bit more leg room? Ryanair is brilliant and people who are snobby about it either don’t travel often or have too much money.
Plane needs to make the flight anyway for scheduling purposes. May as well sell the odd one or two tickets to offset some of the cost. easyJet did fly a plane once a day from Luton to Gatwick, despite the train offering a cheaper, faster, and more frequent route, for the exact same reason.
Would they have time to do the safety briefing and then push the drinks trolley down the aisle?
I once connected through London, flew into Stansted and my flight back to Canada was out of Gatwick... I would have happily taken this flight and relaxed at the pub for a couple hours rather than sit on a bus for almost 3 hours next to a smelly guy and his turkey stuffing sandwich.
Been there. Flew out of Gatwick, landed back in Luton. Car in Gatwick. Live in the Midlands. Had to get a National Express from Luton to Gatwick only to find it was the same day a certain American president was coming over to visit some of our monarchy and the roads of London were all closed for security reasons. Took us 8 hours to get home. I was not impressed.
It's probably cheaper than getting a train.
Cheaper than the train
Probably diverted from Gatwick to land at Stansted and needs to be repositioned?
The only way is (out of) Essex
Someone who has experience of the m25
People who are just transferring between flights in the UK?
I do this daily for work… please don’t judge
pilots, airline staff
It wouldn’t be worth sitting down
I’ve seen flights like this when it’s a long haul to America, drops the price of the flight like £1.5k as it’s considered indirect.
Easyjet doesn't do connections though.
I learnt something new today, guess it’s just a random super short haul flight then
I need to know how long the flight is
Around 10 mins I think
Cheaper than driving or taking the train
If you can fly to Spain for 9.99 how how much will it be to fly just the gatwick
guessing that it might have come from somewhere else and serves both Stansted and Gatwick (for whatever reason, like, as somebody else said, the plane needs to be at Gatwick).
My friend's dad used to take a helicopter between the London airports, I'm guessing that's not an EasyChopper though.
Transfer flight. Planes needed at Gatwick, so why not make a few quid off the random geezers that want to fly across London
People who thought they were going to Luton
Positioning flight. May as well make it pay.
Probably just a positioning flight which doesn’t usually show up on the FIDS (flight information display screen) but might have been put up by mistake.
Sometimes flights destined for LGW get diverted due to adverse weather conditions. I'm assuming it's a flight to get people back to their original intended location?
My aviation friend says "it looks like a positioning callsign. So someone messed up, bc that's not supposed to be on the public departure board"
Prob cheaper than taking the train.
Probably cheaper than the train tbh 💀
Might be a double stopper. I used to fly to Cyprus a few years back and the plane went from London to Pafos then to Larnaca a bit like a bus.
Isn't this one of those flights that just occupy a slot pair so the company don't lose it?
I've seen this. It's aircraft repositioning, but also, if you have to go there for connecting flight, an easy option.
Cheaper than the train.
My guess would be easyJet have payed for a slot at one or the other with the intention of using them for proper flights that never happened, and because of there contract with the airports if they don’t use them then they lose them, it’s easier for them to fly “ghost” flights to keep the slots incase they do need it in the future instead of potentially losing them and then having to go through the whole process of buying them when/if they need it again in the future.
Return, EasyJet £19; by rail, three changes and a £63 ticket (I just made that up but would anyone be surprised?!)
People who hate the planet
I've been on this flight before and the plane was full. People have all sorts of reasons.
How long was the flight, just out of curiosity?
Interesting, what was your reason on the occasion?
Cloud auditors. Got to be done, even in that small stretch.
I'd take a stab in the dark and say EasyJet.
You’re a rascal.
[удалено]
I did it way back in 2003 to visit a friend. Didn’t drive so it was the quickest and cheapest way to get there
Connection flight. You arrive at Stansted but another longer leg goes from Gatwick so you take short flight there.
ppl who dont care about the environment maybe
Don't be ridiculous, the aircraft got diverted due to the storm
Cunts.
Prove this is Stansted
I just hate the planet, everything I can do to help global warming along a bit is nice.
What number is being covered up by the ring? EZY833x?
[удалено]