Using Leeds Bradford Airport Questions & Reviews

[paully]

Sorry, have to disagree.I can`t see why the doors to immigration would or should be closed if flights are arriving. It doesn`t happen at most other airports I can think of. Sounds like someones been reading too much into the proverbial `Elf` catalogue

 

[Britannia94]

If it’s the doors I’m thinking of, the doors are propped upon on a mechanism where if the doors moved enough it will start to shut, I’ve seen it numerous times arriving back in LBA where someone has brushed the door as they pass and it’s caused it to close and lock by itself. Now if this happens to both sides and the escalator is on, I can see why it would cause a problem, especially if the airport don’t have anyone available to monitor it. Sure I know it’s annoying having the escalator off, trust me I’ve been on recieving end of having to walk those stairs, but for those who need it there’s always the lift just on your left.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

Doors usually have at least three roles, as an exit/entry point, security stop and more important as a fire barrier, this is effective when closed.
Therefore I am fairly sure the doors at the top of the escalator, whilst open to allow passageway for passengers, will be needed to be closed if numbers in front on the route are excessive and closed if no one passing though..
If were late of the plane with wheel chair passengers and all other passengers through passport control, often around 3 or 4 doors have to be open with a card, these doors closed for both I would feel security and fire risk.

 

[Aviador]

As was said previously, a member of the airport authority has to be present to operate the escalator. I have no idea why on this occasion this wasn't possible. I agree that it would offer a better experience using LBA if things like escalators are working, nobody can argue with that. Let's face it though, frequent users of neighbouring Manchester airport will know the travelators there are frequently out of service, so LBA isn't on its own with its failings.

 

[Jerry]

And as I said absolute madness......

I'd imagine that it would be a Health and safety requirement to have someone there whether it's busy or not. So when it's not busy it's probably just easier to turn it off rather than have someone standing there for no reason.

 

[Len Fish]

Can’t see the airport using a member of staff, who could probably be more gainfully utilised elsewhere, to supervise the escalator and turning it off when no one is available, unless it is absolutely unavoidable.

 

[paully]

I just cant imagine a situation where you require a member of staff to supervise adults going up an escalator

 

[Aviador]

I just cant imagine a situation where you require a member of staff to supervise adults going up an escalator

So as you step onto the escalator with more people in front of you and more behind you as you go. The first people arriving at the top of the escalator realise the mag-lock doors at the top have closed. The space is only suitable for a small number of people so people start to shuffle back towards the escalator with yet more people arriving. You approach the top of the escalator with nowhere to go and you are pushed backwards down the escalator onto other passengers who haven't yet realised there is a problem. You all tumble down getting your extrematise trapped in the escalator mechanism.

 

[Jerry]

I just cant imagine a situation where you require a member of staff to supervise adults going up an escalator

At LAX in the international terminal once you've checked in you have to go upstairs to security using escalators. They had a member of staff posted at the bottom to control the flow of people going up as the security queue was so big people would've had to queue on the escalator itself. I imagine at busy times Leeds immigration may cause a similar type of backlog? Also you would have the elderly and children as well to look out for. Only recently i witnessed paramedics treating a grown adult at the bottom of the escalator in Membury services after he'd fallen backwards and down it.

 

[White Heather]

The simple fact is.....when we landed there were no other flights in front of us....so the airport was not busy so no H&S issues mentioned by WH, no trails of passengers blocking walkways, fire doors, exits etc...my bug bear is as I said to the dragon..... LBA spending all this money on bars so the pi** heads can all get rat arsed at 8am...air bridges getting refurbished and yet the one and only escalator is ‘AGAIN’ out of order....absolute madness.

Is it the only escalator Offint? I thought there was one down from Immigration into the baggage reclaim hall? The one they are planning to reverse into an 'up' escalator when they do phase 2 of the terminal revamp.
Anyway - whether we understand it or not, or like it, the fact is that it is off for a reason and not usually because it is broken down (as Aviador has stated). Lets just be grateful that soon, it won't matter any more, always presuming of course that Leeds City Planning approve the new terminal.

 

[SNOWMAN]

re the escalator
this as been a pain for years and has put my wife off LBA, if its there it should be working,this year with tui providing a agp flight from lba with sunwing we thought lets use this instead of DSA on return to lba we were 25 mins early and put on the
air bridge,also unload at the same time was a jet2 757 using the escalator and there was no airport employe at the top,but they had a barrier inplace splitting the corridor in half and both lines merged further down the corridor this worked very well.
sm1
ps
the flight was full both ways.

 

[a300boy]

Back to Doncaster for you then Snowman ! Another Lba supporter list.

 

[Bigman]

Just to put this all in context, I went to Manny the other Saturday, and all 3 travelators from the station to T1 were out of action. It's not just LBA!!!

 

[Scottie Dog]

The problem with the MAN travellators is two-fold:

1) They are old and need replacing. If parts fail then they have to be sourced or even made. This can take up to 6 weeks.

2) As with so many public facilities the travellator are considered to be "game" for children and foolish teenagers/youths to press the Stop button. Due to their age there is no automatic fault reporting system and it needs either a staff member to spot the fault, or a phone call from the public to make the control room aware of the stoppage.

Does Leeds possibly have a similar problem with their escalators?

 

[Aviador]

To be honest it's more of a design fault. All along the arrival corridor there are mag lock doors. There are two sides to separate passenger if required but the doors between the two corridors can be pulled shut by anyone. If this happens you can get a build up of people making it potentially dangerous. I would expect the corridors to be altered during the course of the terminal revamp over the next 12-18 months.

 

[White Heather]

To be honest it's more of a design fault. All along the arrival corridor there are mag lock doors. There are two sides to separate passenger if required but the doors between the two corridors can be pulled shut by anyone. If this happens you can get a build up of people making it potentially dangerous. I would expect the corridors to be altered during the course of the terminal revamp over the next 12-18 months.

Exactly Aviador. Clearly, when that escalator was put in, the problems described were not envisaged, but all I can do is confirm that problems did indeed occur, which is why the escalator is supposed to be supervised and at other times, turned off. The problems are exacerbated also by the fact that when people do use it, they have various amounts of luggage with them too, simply adding to the problem. And before anyone says that its an airport, they should be able to take luggage on the escalator, I would point out that at Leeds City Station, the escalators are supervised and passengers cannot take anything other than hand carried luggage on to them. In fact they used to have an automated cardboard cut out lady with a pre-recorded message standing at the bottom, telling people to use the steps (of lift if necessary). As I said, it will soon be a non problem.

 

[airforced]

Whilst there may be long standing reasons, some based on initial poor design, for this unsatisfactory situation existing at certain times which I partially understand and accept. However, there can't be any acceptable reason why this problem is allowed to exist when the airport has it within their power to avoid it by ensuring that the escalator is, if necessary, manned and available for use whenever it is needed. How they do that is immaterial to passengers and to make comparisions with MAN and Leeds railway station is somewhat insulting and so far wide of the mark as to be flipant in my view.

 

[Seasider]

I think that we are going to have to "agree to differ" in our views on this topic.

 

[White Heather]

Whilst there may be long standing reasons, some based on initial poor design, for this unsatisfactory situation existing at certain times which I partially understand and accept. However, there can't be any acceptable reason why this problem is allowed to exist when the airport has it within their power to avoid it by ensuring that the escalator is, if necessary, manned and available for use whenever it is needed. How they do that is immaterial to passengers and to make comparisions with MAN and Leeds railway station is somewhat insulting and so far wide of the mark as to be flipant in my view.

Sorry, but how is my reference to Leeds Station flippant? I was simply pointing out that escalators and luggage don't go well together and tend to create H&S problems, and that this is not a situation unique to LBA and its escalator, it applies at Leeds Station too. There has been many accidents caused by luggage on escalators, even ones that are well located, unlike the one at LBA. I totally agree that it is within the remit of the airport to have it manned and therefore in use, but clearly they consider it inappropriate to have someone standing there half the day watching folk come up the escalator. Sometimes they man it, and sometimes they don't.

 

[Aviador]

You can tell there's nothing much to talk about when all we can find to discuss about LBA is it's escalators. Hopefully at some point in the near future we'll be talking about the arrivals terminal construction progress.