London Luton Airport (LLA) recently celebrated the operational excellence and gold-standard customer service of colleagues from over 50 shops and restaurants across the LLA terminal.

LLA’s first ever annual Retail Awards, hosted at Venue 360 in Luton, saw teams and colleagues celebrated across 16 award categories, highlighting shining examples of outstanding customer service, community engagement and retail operations.

Individual recognition awards were also presented to airport staff members who have gone above and beyond to demonstrate service excellence for passengers and the local community. Aaron Jarman, Store Manager at M&S, received the ‘Local Charity Support’ award for securing a £1,000 donation to Luton Foodbank, while Aleksandra Kostka, Assistant Manager at Italian restaurant, Nolito, received the Star of the Year award for consistently going the extra mile for passengers. 

Mark Jennings, Interim Director of Non-Aeronautical Revenues at London Luton Airport, said: “London Luton Airport’s inaugural Annual Retail Awards was a huge success and presented the perfect opportunity to come together as one and celebrate the exceptional work of our frontline colleagues across the airport. We’re thrilled to be able to recognise the hard work and dedication of the teams working around-the-clock in shops and restaurants around the terminal who, alongside our amazing LLA operational colleagues, are very often the last faces people see before heading off on their travels and central to leaving a lasting impression of LLA’s simple and friendly passenger experience.”

Passengers travelling from LLA now have over 50 exciting shops and restaurants to explore. Recent openings at the airport include new landside bar, The Fletton, sushi and bento specialist Wasabi, and high street favourites Pandora and Victoria’s Secret. Earlier in the year saw the opening of American-style diner and loft bar, Sanfords, the largest restaurant in any UK airport and winner of the European Restaurant Design of the Year’ award at the 2025 Airport Food & Beverage (FAB) Awards.  

In 2024, LLA was voted as the standout European airport for food and beverage choice at the 2024 Food & Beverage Awards.

In October, LLA was recognised for the second consecutive year at the prestigious UK Customer Experience Awards (UKCXA), taking home gold in the Best Customer Centric Culture (over 500 employees) category. The airport’s bespoke training programme ‘The LLA Way’ was hailed as central to the win, for providing a framework of behaviours for direct LLA employees and service partners, including colleagues from LLA’s shops and restaurants, to ensure a collaborative and caring end-to-end passenger experience and a culture of service excellence. 

London Luton Airport 2025 Retail Award Winners:

•    LLA Guest Experience Award – Change Group 
•    Retail Sustainability Champion Award – Big Smoke Taphouse & Kitchen (by ARE)
•    Local Charity Support Award – Aaron Jarmon, Store Manager, M&S Simply Food (by SSP)
•    Airport Engagement Award – Jay Keval Patel, Store Manager, Kurt Geiger
•    Airport Community Impact Award – Gianluca Petrone, Terminal Manager, Boots 
•    Retail Marketing Collaboration Award – Aelia Duty Free & Lagardere Travel Retail (inc. LEGO & Discover London) 
•    Food & Beverage Marketing Collaboration Award – TRGC 
•    Customer Choice Award – Wasabi Sushi & Bento (by Lagardere Travel Retail)
•    Operational Excellence Award – Sanfords Diner & Loft Bar (by TRGC)
•    Best Retail Customer Service Award – Accessorize 
•    Best Food & Beverage Customer Service Award – Black Sheep Coffee 
•    Best Retail Sales Performance Award – JD Sports and LEGO by Lagardere Travel Retail
•    Best Food & Beverage Sales Performance Award – Black Sheep Coffee 
•    Special Recognition Award – Ruth Lynch, Store Operations Manager, WHSmith 
•    Star of the Year Award – Aleksandra Kostka, Assistant Manager, Nolito (by ARE)

About London Luton Airport
London Luton Airport (LLA) is one of the UK’s busiest airports, operated by a consortium, of which the majority shareholder is AENA, the world’s largest airport operator, and InfraBridge, a leading infrastructure investment manager. Airlines include Jet2, easyJet, Wizz Air, Ryanair, Tui, FlyOne, Sun Express and El Al.

The airport is owned for community benefit by Luton Rising, a company wholly-owned by Luton Council, which has invested more than £500m in front-line, voluntary and charitable services since 1998.

The Luton Airport Express is a new dedicated train service that allows passengers to travel from central London to the LLA terminal in around 30 minutes. The Luton Airport Express runs from St Pancras International to Luton Airport Parkway station and connects seamlessly with the DART, an electrically powered people mover that connects to the airport terminal in less than four minutes.

In 2024, LLA was named European Airport of the Year (10-25 million passengers) by ACI EUROPE, and in 2025 LLA received the highest possible rating of 'Very Good' in the annual Airport Accessibility report published by the CAA, assessing assisted travel service performance.

In 2023, LLA also achieved Level 4 of the globally recognised Airport Carbon Accreditation scheme, demonstrating that it is ‘transforming its operations to achieve carbon reductions in line with global climate goals’. With a maximum score of 100 and a five-star rating, LLA has been ranked as a sector leader for four consecutive years in the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) benchmark of sustainability governance management and performance of major infrastructure assets worldwide.

LLA continues to be a major employer and a key economic driver in Bedfordshire — supporting 28,000 jobs and contributing £830 million per year to the local economy. In 2024, LLA spent 60% of its supply chain costs with more than 300 businesses within a 25-mile radius of the airport, totalling £110 million.

London Luton Airport Press Office
T: 01582 395333
E: pressoffice@ltn.aero

URL: https://mediahub.london-luton.co.uk/news/28112025/headline-news-1