Our mission and values
Luton Rising is the trading name of London Luton Airport Ltd.
The airport is our largest asset, but we are much more than airport. We are part of, and builders of, community. This is not a business owned by remote shareholders. It is owned by the community itself, through our sole shareholder, Luton Council.
We are supporting a movement to raise up everyone in the community out of poverty, creating a town where people thrive.
This is reflected in our values. It is also reflected in very tangible contributions.
The contribution we are able to make to frontline services amounts to 15% of the Council’s income. On top of that, we give significant support to community groups and services in Luton, amounting to around £7 million this year. These include organisations which help homeless people, people needing mental health support and people who are hungry. We highlight some of these people in the Our Community section.
Our social impact comes not just from these substantial financial contributions to Luton’s public services and community organisations (£412 million in total since 1998). It is also reflected in how we grow our business, such as developing a new, green innovation hub, and our inclusive employment initiatives.
As the most significant business in the region, the airport supports 27,000 jobs and £1.8 billion in economic activity.
Our other assets, such as the Luton DART, have given opportunities to hundreds of people to develop skills and begin their careers, and our business parks will take this further. This is truly “levelling up”. This is covered in detail in the Our Airport section.
As owners of an airport, we are aware of our environmental impact: particularly carbon emissions, noise, traffic and air pollution. Our sustainability strategy is, we believe, the most far-reaching commitment to minimising these environmental impacts ever put forward by a UK airport. And we aim to go further, pro-actively supporting the Council’s target for Luton to be carbon neutral by 2040. You can read much more about this in the Our Planet section.
We are, in essence, a social enterprise, at the heart of a movement for positive change in our town and in our region. We hope you will join us on that journey.