Re: Leeds Bradford Airport - Runways, Aprons and Taxiways.
The main issue is when disembarking passengers from 6. If there is an aircraft on stand 3 or 5 it is very difficult to disembark on 6 as generally the one on 3/5 is also boarding or disembarking. This creates a confilct of arriving and departing passengers, not so much an issue on domestics but an international arrival on stand 6 can be a nightmare to disembark if a domestic on 3/5 is boarding/disembarking. This was an issue last year but as bmi got pissy that they wanted contact stands all the time, stands 3 & 5 will now be used much more often by bmi embraers now, further adding to the problem. Just to highlight, that is the root cause of all these changes. bmi were not happy that their embraer was stuck on stand 16 most of the time. (usually because it hardly flew anywhere) and demanded they get contact walking stands. Perhaps LBA should demand bmi fly to Frankfurt and acutually try develop their routes as a way of saying sorry? :shok:
Safety wise, the changes made to the road after the up are better but it still leaves a lot to be desired. Say for example if a 737 is parked on stand 6 and a Dash 8 on stand 5 - passengers disembarking from the rear of the 737 have the tendancy to walk straight into the road rather than follow the poorly marked lines that lead them back to the front of the aircraft. From a passengers point of view it is highly confusing - meaning 3 escorts are required for inbounds. (In my previous posts I was referring to having 2 escorts outside for boarding, normally only 1 is required - apologies if that was unclear) The main issue the airlines have is that when an aircraft on stand 5 is being serviced the road is part blocked by the vehicles.
Looking on the layout highlighted above, imagine an aircraft on stand 5, all the service vehicles (Tanker, Catering etc) all use the right hand side of the aircraft - right where the road is. When an aircraft is disembarking on 6 and one on 5 is being serviced it means the road is part blocked and limited to one way traffic and passengers are walking right next to the road with no barriers. Assuming all the airside drivers drive slowly and are patient, there should be no problems, but for those of us that work airside.... we know that does not happen.
The issue with the ambilift only occurs as there is no designated bay for disembarking passengers. Apologies again if I was not specific in my previous post. The ambulift now has to reverse into a gap between stand 5 and the end of the ASU office - this is where there is a real risk of passenger injury as when buses stop in the deignated area to drop arriving passengers off they are able to walk right next to the disembarking ambilift and generally walk all around it including under where the lowering back of the amibilift drops.
In theory the road system should work, but at busy times it grinds everything to a halt. If they had gone on the original plan of relocating the airside road behind the stands the adjustments to stand 5/6 would not have needed to be done. However because they had already changed stand 3 and scrapped the new road plan, the only way it was possible to do the road was between stand 5 & 6. As with everything LBA, no one sits and thinks things through and consults the people who actually have to work on the ramp. It is just done in a massive hurry and made a mess of.
This then comes to the issue of the walkway. There are issues with the roads at stand 5/6 currently, at the quietest time of the year. Having the walkway down to stand 14 would have meant that not as many buses were required to collect passengers from remote stands. As there is uncertainty over the walkway actually happening, come August it really is going to be interesting to put the new road layout to the test with buses swinging around those tight corners every few minutes.
