Route Development & Rumours

[a300boy]

I drive over at 4am as the big rare birds arrive early morning never had a problem after a day bit of aircraft spotting back to Leeds at around for around 2100.

 

[SNOWMAN]

a300boy
i should hope you dont have any problems at those times of the day, try 06-30 its a different beast then.
sm

 

[a300boy]

That’s the second reason to travel early !

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

reg a300boy point, the Pegasus to Istanbul flights mancs has just secured would of been idea for LBA, another one lost

It's a bit like a broken record. We are not the only northern airport that was probably trying to attract such a service. And lets be honest Pegasus want a piece of the larger MAN-IST market which i don't blame them for. Going after a market share of an already established market is business sense. Maybe at this point, maybe just maybe, Turkish airlines will look at LBA. But they will only do that once the MAX issues are solved.

 

[Deleted member 82]

sherburnflyer92 I think Turkish would be a much better option anyway due to transfer potential at the new airport at Arnavutkoy. With the massive new facility Turkish will need to fill it, therefore I could see LBA featuring at some point. With West Yorkshire having a demographic mix that would transit via an eastern point, Istanbul could be a destination hopefully in the short/medium term.

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

I'd prefer Turkish - 2 daily 737-800's will do nicely. Thanks you very much. As you pointed out @xboy999 they have much more coverage of destinations which will help filling up with connections. Oh and cargo too.

 

[louis_walton]

Now that BMI is no longer we will have no new routes for W19 nothing new from Ryanair which is a shame. Hopefully something new will come around as business routes were promised by the new team but we still only have what we began with routes wise...

 

[Britannia94]

Jet blue have just announced they are to operate to London from Boston and New York with A321LR. Wouldn't it be nice if LBA could manage to persuade them to operate to JFK. It would give excellent connections onto other JetBlue flights at T5. How I can dream...

 

[Finger66]

LBA seems to be an invisible airport to many airlines. It is so frustrating because you can clearly see the potential. 4m pax a year speaks for itself. The right product on the right routes with the right aircraft at the right frequency is what's needed but aviation in turmoil isn't helping. Won't rake up the old ground on infrastructure etc. but there is a killing there to be made for someone! Jet2 have proved that on bucket and spade so it's the business stuff we need now, so come on airlines, wake up to what LBA has to offer

 

[jason1-11]

If there is one route that epitomises the issue it’s Paris.

I work for a French company with a manufacturing base in West Yorkshire. All our inbound / outbound staff use the Air France service from Manchester as opposed to the 4 a week Disneyland Special that we currently have. The route hasn’t been business friendly since the days of BMI Regional and now handles less passengers a month than Exeter and Southampton. Take a look up the A1 to NCL to see what we are missing out on.

Take note HOP !

 

[Finger66]

I for one would give three cheers if they did. Hop, Hop, Hooray. Paris is possibly a route where Jet2 being the incumbent carrier are deterring others a little. I also suspect that because KL do so well on AMS that they don't want to risk diluting their connecting traffic. Yes it would take some but would increase overall Skyteam connections on top of point to point which there is a big business market for. So Jason1-11 I am with you. HOP take note. Would one such carrier make some others sit up and take notice of LBA I wonder?

 

[LBA4EVER]

Its also amazing how many people don't even realise Leeds has an airport!

 

[Aviador]

Its also amazing how many people don't even realise Leeds has an airport!

Seriously?

 

[LBA4EVER]

seriously yes! people I chat to online for eg those who live outside the leeds and Bradford areas, well many don't realise we have an airport and within my job im on the roads a lot and many think the airport signs are for Manchester airport! crazy hey!

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

4 million people clearly know the airport exists. So that's rubbish - and the sign are not clear when you have airport around the M621/M62 and M606 junctions - of course this is going to cause confusion.

And as silly as this sounds; AF feed LBA through their KLM partnership CDG to LBA via AMS.

 

[Finger66]

Its also amazing how many people don't even realise Leeds has an airport!

Fight2win you seem to have a talent for putting a downer on all things LBA. Of course this is a forum and we are all entitled to our opinion but I also suspect you want LBA to develop so how about finding a bit of positivity from somewhere. I appreciate not everything is good at LBA, but it certainly ain't all bad either

 

[Deleted member 82]

I think there is a pre airport symbol only sign that says for Leeds Bradford Airport follow Thereafter it is just the symbol, but not on all routes the M606 doesn’t have one. That said most people one would hope would have a semblance of direction and recognition of the county they are in

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Most people have little or no interest in aviation except when they want to fly somewhere. I can easily imagine that Mr J Public of, say Portsmouth, might not know that Leeds has an airport as he might be unaware that such places as Liverpool or Bristol have airports.

Being somewhat gregarious and nerdy when it comes to aviation, I sometimes engage in conversation complete strangers about the local scene and I am no longer surprised when, for example, a person living in Bristol assumes that Cardiff's airport is larger and busier than Bristol's (Cardiff's is physically) because it serves a capital city. A few years ago I rang the local radio station for the first time, and I hope the last. It was during a phone-in about BRS. The radio host was telling his lsiteners how much better the air services were in Wales compared with Bristol. Perversely and ironically it was right in the middle of CWL's slump from 2 mppa to 1 mppa.

I've stopped assuming that many local people know anything at all about Bristol Airport unless they are aviation aficionados.

 

[lbaspotter]

Well if like me you live in North or West Leeds i'm sure most people know the is an airport nearby. You only have to look up to see aircraft inbound on the 32 approach or when 14 is in use for take-off's, as you can't miss the noise of them RB211's on Jet2's Boeing 757's / or the noise when we have a military aircraft do a missed approach. Honestly you can't really miss the sheer size of a Boeing C17, Globemaster III when one is circuit bashing.

I do hear people say they would love to use LBA, but they can't as LBA doesn't offer either the flights or routes they want to use, Or that is just as easier and possibly cheaper to fly from MAN/LPL/DSA.
You also hear people say they wont use LBA during winter months due to been diverted. I keep trying to tell people that our diversion rate isn't as bad now-a-days, but that seems to not work for some people.

 

[Deleted member 82]

I think that’s a well made point TheLocalYokel, also most people may know there’s regional airports in whichever location, but may assume routes are not served and expect them to be served only by larger airports. I often hear comments that people don’t believe they can fly from LBA to places, when in reality they can, just maybe not at the same frequency as other airports.
Back to the thread and route development I wonder if the airport has ever explored inbound tourism, especially in light of tour de Yorkshire etc. Could a weekly inbound route spark enough interest to whet the appetite for scheduled routes?