Effective March 25 all general aviation aircraft are required to have slots for landings and takeoffs at London Luton Airport. The privately owned airport has said that it has had to introduce the requirement to be able to “better manage the flow of ad hoc traffic.” It has emphasized that it does not wish to discourage business aviation traffic. Slots are already required for airline traffic, which has been growing rapidly due largely to the boom in European low-cost carriers.

Slots are required at all hours and must be requested in advance from ACL, the company that manages slot allocation at many UK airports. ACL has said that slot requests for business aircraft operators should be made by one of Luton’s two FBOs, Signature Flight Support and Harrods Aviation. More information is available from www.acl-uk.org.

Slots are already required for general aviation traffic at the UK capital’s London City, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports. They are not required at Biggin Hill or Farnborough, and the RAF Northolt military base has its own slot process.