Slots Away!
London Luton Airport Authority has recently invited Airport Coordination Limited (ACL) to manage runway slot allocation for all arriving and departing aircraft at the airport, excluding helicopters.

With effect from 25 March 2007 London Luton airport became designated as a Schedules Facilitated (Level 2) airport in accordance with the IATA Worldwide Scheduling Guidelines.

London Luton Airport Authority have introduced a system whereby all flights can only operate with prior permission secured through ACL or, as a last resort, the London Luton Airport Operations Control Centre.

The strengthening of the Luton operations team will ensure that the slot application procedure will commence as soon as a handling request is received from a customer. Any operators with their own Online Coordination Account may submit requests for permission directly to ACL but if this is your preferred method, please keep us informed of the status of such requests.

Once slots are allocated operators are expected to operate as closely as possible to the permitted times to minimise congestion and delays. Harrods Aviation needs to be notified of any schedule changes and/or cancellations as soon as a customer becomes aware in order that capacity can be reallocated.

The permitted 'slot tolerance' windows of operation will give 45 minutes to arriving flights and 40 minutes for departing aircraft for potential operation relative to slot time.

Harrods Aviation is confident that this system will benefit its customers in the long term as it is designed to ensure that requests for operations are administered in a neutral, non-discriminatory and transparent way. It also seeks to prevent congestion in peak hours from impacting upon the efficient operation of the airport and therefore assisting all operators. It is the airport's intention that no flight will be turned away, but at the same time operators will be monitored closely and repeat offenders found to be operating outside the guidelines will be warned as to their future use of the airport.

If you have any concerns please contact us.