Leeds Bradford - General Thread

[Heathrowflyer]

The problem is that in effect the business flights dont want to follow the charter ones. If you have a full day's work you need to be setting off early and (ideally) not get caught up with jet 2 /Ryanair pax. The issue is that both business and leisure flights want the most attractive early slots and also adequate terminal space for each of these pax markets.

 

[LBA4EVER]

Our terminal infrastructure will not attract any such operators. Sorry for having to be pragmatic.

another reason to get the new terminal built then.

 

[LBA4EVER]

I dont buy that The terminal isn't adequate enough to attract them! British airways klm do it, pia used to do it!!! Yes it it is inadequate first thing on a morning with the wave of departures but after that there are whole periods of well nothing!!! These flights would/could be timed after those wave of departures anyway. There is room for expansion even with the terminal as it is.

MAN is inadequate first thing in a morning too!

 

[Heathrowflyer]

But MAN is big enough to separate business and leisure pax more effectively Airside.

 

[Heathrowflyer]

Local councillors' reactions to the increased parking charges:

https://www.ilkleygazette.co.uk/news/18015585.criticism-airport-parking-charges/

 

[LBA4EVER]

But MAN is big enough to separate business and leisure pax more effectively Airside.

Its just excuse after excuse, we all no LBA should have these airlines, and when these airlines arrive development will happen too. Said it before, we are in leeds and west yorks here, not some backwards end of the world place.

 

[Rob c DSA]

interesting though how we don't get a single movement for 5 hrs but then the rest of the day we get an arrival approx every 15mins

Not a bad thing the airport will be paying less staff, better to have several arrivals an hour most the day and a quiet period than 2 each hour.

 

[Finger66]

So we now reach Weds 13th and we are still waiting for something massive. I am starting to fear the doubters may be proved right again. This is actually becoming quite depressing. And that coming from someone who is generally pretty positive about things, especially LBA wise. Cheer us all up LBA with some good news please.

 

[Bigman]

This dnata thing seems interesting. Time will tell but in time honored LBA fashion, I am not getting my hopes up.

 

[LBA4EVER]

So we now reach Weds 13th and we are still waiting for something massive. I am starting to fear the doubters may be proved right again. This is actually becoming quite depressing. And that coming from someone who is generally pretty positive about things, especially LBA wise. Cheer us all up LBA with some good news please.

Perhaps waiting for a quiet news day to announce the massive news? atm we have busy news days with the flooding,g.election etc?

 

[Tarn Spotter]

Local councillors' reactions to the increased parking charges:

https://www.ilkleygazette.co.uk/news/18015585.criticism-airport-parking-charges/

Just to repeat a previous comment, for blue badge holders charge is £3 for 30 minutes, show card by pressing button on exit or at the information desk.

 

[AirBingley]

So we now reach Weds 13th and we are still waiting for something massive. I am starting to fear the doubters may be proved right again. This is actually becoming quite depressing. And that coming from someone who is generally pretty positive about things, especially LBA wise. Cheer us all up LBA with some good news please.

This is really left field as like you I am a huge fan of LBA and will use it whenever I can - 2 weeks from 31 October is tomorrow and Virgin Connect goes on sale tomorrow.... have my accountant's 2 plus 2 made 3,4 or 5? ... and have we been barking up the wrong tree?

 

[White Heather]

With regard to the differences between LBA and DSA at the moment being relatively small, I would agree, but, from next month when our ski, Santa and New York flights commence it will probably grow again and continue to grow through the coming months. The chief reason that DSA has 1.2m pax and LBA has just over 4m is clearly the summer programme from LBA. Jet2 alone operate more flights out of LBA in summer on the average day than DSA has from all operators. When you add in Ryanair, KLM, BA, Eastern, Virgin Connect and even a few TUi's of our own, it is easy to see why LBA has nearly 3 times the passenger throughput of DSA already. It will be interesting to see what happens next summer once the loss of DSA's Flybe/Virgin operation goes into the stats and also the loss of one based Ryanair 737 here at LBA. Judging by what I have seen, it appears that the loss of the Jet2 757s will be adequately covered by the increased flying next summer and additional based aircraft.

 

[AirBingley]

So all in all not too shabby from 4 of the airports airline partners - capacity increases from LS, BE, EI and KL over the last few weeks - all we need now are EW to Dusseldorf (bearing in mind they carry from Newcastle what BE used to from LBA and LBA was without connecting traffic), LH to Munich and AF to France!

 

[Tarn Spotter]

Can LBA management afford to invite any further German operator to LBA.
At the moment Lufthansa, Ryanair and Easyjet are basically in a fight to the death over the german market. The three companies have blown £500M in the last year, just on their german operation.
Something has to give and the financial market feel the financial viability of Easyjet is now at stake unless they withdraw from this market or scale back.
It does not make long term commercial sense to get involved in a market that everyone knows is not financially sound. basically every route is loss making, due to companies throwing money in price promotion to see off their rivals.
Better to see who comes out on top.

 

[Statto]

There‘s not really much risk for LBA though. Worst case scenario, an operator launches a German route and then drops it a later date. That would leave them exactly where they are now, with no routes to Germany. On the flip side, they might get a few years of data showing passenger use and general demand for a route which is makes it a bit easier to market the route to other airlines. Think about LBA today, they’ve got much more evidence for demand for LBA - Islamabad than they have for LBA - Frankfurt

 

[AirBingley]

Interesting re Germany - oeprators are going for popular routes with pretty low fares- just had a 35 Euro Email from Lufthansa- crazy! Many people say LBA is more expensive than Manchester as there is less competition so actually it may make sense for someone to diversify and not follow the turkeys voting for Christmas.... this debate on this forum does pop up now and then - the other thing is BM seats were said to be filling well on the defunct LBA - MUC service and that was even before the codeshare got into full swing. LBA - DUS had a track record of 75% load factors and ca 2- 3k pax per month which is broadly similar to EW out of Newcastle - EW in theory should be carrying some transit pax whereas BE were hitting purely the point to point market. Food for thought!

 

[Heathrowflyer]

There‘s not really much risk for LBA though. Worst case scenario, an operator launches a German route and then drops it a later date. That would leave them exactly where they are now, with no routes to Germany. On the flip side, they might get a few years of data showing passenger use and general demand for a route which is makes it a bit easier to market the route to other airlines. Think about LBA today, they’ve got much more evidence for demand for LBA - Islamabad than they have for LBA - Frankfurt

Agree Statto ...in terms of LBA to Islamabad, didnt PIA previously pull the route because of pilot concerns about LBA's runway being too short?

 

[Seasider]

Not true.
It was due to the Airbus A310 being returned to the lessor and PIA not wanting to use Boeing 777.- unless someone knows different.

 

[Bobby Ham]

Not true.
It was due to the Airbus A310 being returned to the lessor and PIA not wanting to use Boeing 777.- unless someone knows different.

Err why didn't they want to use the 777, was it because the runway was too short?