Wizz Air is London LTN’s top airline; airport has 120 destinations in S25; Palma leading market
London LTN welcomed just over 16.7 million passengers in 2024, cementing its position as the fourth-busiest airport serving the UK capital and the country’s fifth-busiest facility. The Bedfordshire airport, just over a half-hour train trip from central London, benefited from the arrival of Israir in November 2024.
The year 2025 will be critical in LTN’s development. Jet2.com will open a base in April with two A321neos and 17 routes. It will immediately become the airport’s fourth-largest operator.
Wizz Air is number one with 42% of capacity
LTN has 10 passenger airlines, and their order based on S25 one-way seats is shown below. With 42% of the airport’s capacity, ULCC Wizz Air remains the leading operator. LTN remains Wizz Air’s most-served airport, although the gap with number two has narrowed to 9%.
Its capacity has risen by 4% year-on-year. That’s despite using lower-gauge aircraft due to engine problems and having three fewer routes compared to S24. While Bydgoszcz, Lisbon, Salzburg and Targu Mures have ended or will do so, it will resume Bucharest BBU flights on 2 April (daily). BBU, closer to downtown Bucharest, was last served by Wizz Air in 2012.
The top five countries have half of LTN’s capacity
Based on having at least 1,000 one-way seats, Cirium shows that LTN will have flights to 120 destinations in 35 countries in S25. The top five countries – Spain, Romania, Poland, the UK and Portugal – have half of the airport’s seats.
The big capacity increase to Spain (+18%) is largely due to Jet2.com’s arrival, which includes Girona (starting 6 July, weekly), a market last served by Ryanair in 2021. It also benefited from easyJet’s launch of Almeria flights (starting 30 March; 2-weekly). LTN will have flights to 15 Spanish airports. Romania has the next highest number (12), followed by Italy and Poland (nine each).
Compared to S24, LTN has gained flights to Georgia. This is due to easyJet, which will launch Tbilisi flights on 1 April (2-weekly). While this will be the first time LTN has had flights to the Georgian capital, Wizz Air flew to Kutaisi until 2020. Balancing its country network is the fact that summer flights to Austria have ended, but they return in W25.
Palma de Mallorca has replaced Amsterdam as the top destination
LTN’s 120-strong destination map includes some winter hang-ons, which straddle the seasons, and time-limited services, such as to the Isle of Man with easyJet for the TT races at the end of May/beginning of June.
Jet2.com’s arrival means that Palma becomes LTN’s top market, replacing Amsterdam, which was number one in S24. There will be 49-weekly Palma flights in August by easyJet (30), Wizz Air (7), Jet2.com (6), Ryanair (3) and TUI (3).
Due to capacity falling by a quarter, Amsterdam – which was first last year – is now 11th. Lisbon and Dublin have also fallen out of the top 10 list year-on-year, replaced by Faro, Tel Aviv and Alicante.
Using Cirium to compare LTN’s S25 network with S24 shows that it has gained flights to Almeria, Bucharest BBU, Basel, Djerba, Funchal, Girona, Tbilisi, and Verona. However, flights to Montpellier, Mykonos, Salzburg and Santorini have ended.
