London Luton Airport (LTN)

Most flights at Luton Airport are operated by budget airlines including Blue Air, easyJet, Ryanair, TUI Airways, Vueling and Wizz Air. Most flights in and out of Luton are operated by easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air. Both easyJet and TUI’s head offices are located at Luton Airport.

Most flights from the airport are short-haul flights to European destinations and there is a high portion of flights to leisure destinations in Turkey and the Mediterranean.

Luton Airport is London’s fourth-busiest airport, after Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

Facilities at London Luton Airport (LTN)

Luton is a relatively small airport with a single terminal building and it has fairly good facilities for such a small airport.

There is a good selection of shops at the airport including the usual duty-free shop, Boots the chemist and WHSmith newsagents (which you will find at all international airport terminals in the UK).

Bars, cafes and restaurants at the airport include Benugo, Burger King, Caffè Nero, Costa, the Great British Sausage Company, Pret a Manger, Pizza e Pronta and Starbucks before security; Bella Italia, Benugo, Enrique Tomás, Est Bar, Frankie & Benny’s, Krispy Kreme, Oriel Grande Brasserie, Pret a Manger, the Smithfield Pub & Kitchen, Starbucks and Wasabi after security and Benugo, Burger King, Costa, Pret a Manger and Starbucks in arrivals.

The Aspire Executive Lounge is the only lounge at Luton Airport. The lounge has free food and drink and is a quieter spot to wait for your flight in an otherwise crowded airport terminal. Anyone who can pay to access the lounge and Diners Club cardholders and Priority Pass members can visit the lounge free of charge.

Getting to and from London Luton Airport (LTN)

For a relatively minor airport, Luton is surprisingly well connected with frequent bus, coach and rail connections. You can get into Central London in less than 25 minutes (although most trains take around half an hour) and there are direct rail services to Gatwick Airport and direct coach services to Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted Airports.

The airport is served by Luton Airport Parkway railway station, which has direct trains to London as well as Bedford, Brighton, Gatwick Airport, Leicester, Luton and Nottingham. The station is around 1.5km (1 mile) west of Luton Airport with shuttle buses to the airport running every 10 minutes.

Make sure you ask for a ticket to Luton Airport (and not just Luton or Luton Airport Parkway) when you buy your train ticket to ensure that your ticket includes the shuttle bus to the airport, otherwise you may have to pay an additional fare to get all the way to the airport.

There are seven trains per hour to central London, six of these are Thameslink trains that run through Central London stopping at St Pancras, Farringdon, City Thameslink and Blackfriars with most of these trains also stopping at London Bridge railway station. The other London train is run by East Midlands trains and runs express to London St Pancras railway station.

Luton Airport Parkway station also has four trains per hour to Bedford, two trains per hour to Brighton, four trains per hour to Gatwick Airport, six trains per hour to Luton and an hourly service to Leicester, Loughborough and Nottingham.

There are also frequent bus and coach services to Luton Airport with easyBus, Green Line and National Express coaches all running into Central London. EasyBus is usually the cheapest way to get into Central London, although all the bus and coach services are cheaper than the train. However, the bus takes around twice as long as the train to get into Central London.

National Express coaches also connect Luton Airport with Cambridge, Leicester, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Nottingham and Oxford and National Express also have direct coach services to Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted Airports.

Local buses connect the airport with Luton town centre as well as nearby towns such as Dunstable, Harpenden, Hitchin, Leighton Buzzard, Milton Keynes and Stevenage.