LBAYORKIE
Well-Known Member
- Dec 30, 2009
- 3,219
- 233
INfamous you mean. It would be better to remove it, it just winds up passengers. Doesnt look good when an airport cant make an escalator work. I suppose sane applies to the airbridge.
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Using Leeds Bradford Airport (Questions & Reviews)
- Thread starter Aviador
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Don't get me going on that bloody escalator...
LBA4EVER
Well-Known Member
Not just the escalator, you have those 2 little standard size doors under the arrivals sign what everyone is trying to pile in through from outside, after flying from Alicante airport its like arriving at some remote african airfield.
YorkshireLad
Well-Known Member
Good to see you had a good flight. It was better than my first time on a MAX
LBA4EVER
Well-Known Member
What happened with your max flight? mcas playing up haha
YorkshireLad
Well-Known Member
Having to change aircraft due to a technical fault resulting in a 2.5 hour delay and landing at LBA in a gale. Luckily MCAS was fixed by then or they would have been the least of our worries
LBA4EVER
Well-Known Member
Do you have any idea what the technical fault was? I bet you were a little concerned with been aware you were flying on a max. Makes you wonder though if boeing are having to fit so much new tech simply because its such an old airframe. I strongly believe they should of designed a total replacement for the 737 but enhanced the 757 as its size and ground clearance is ideal plus the engines on the 757 are fantastic anyway so any improvement on them would of been the icing on the cake!
YorkshireLad
Well-Known Member
I think the fault was something to do with one of the doors. To be honest I was more annoyed than scared as the max had been flying for about 2 years after MCAS was fixed at that point
Arrived back yesterday and it was pretty subpar as per…
I knew this probably would be the case after checking how many flights were going to arrive within our arrival period, 4 Jet2’s, 5 or 6 Ryanair’s including a Lauda, KLM and Balkan (European air charter). At that moment I decided not to tell my partner I felt it was going to be poor experience just so I could get her genuine reaction to the arrival experience.
A bit of context - she’s from South Yorkshire but lived In London for a fair chunk of her adult life. We’ve been away many times together using a multitude of airports but miraculously it was her first time using LBA.
We landed runway 14 at around 1620 and after taxiing down delta we turned onto November taxiway and stopped. Most stands were occupied and there was a Ryanair on our stand nearing readiness to push. After 5-10 mins the stand was vacated, we parked and everyone for some reason always stand up to await disembarkation. After what seemed and age in a hot aircraft the captain came onto the PA to inform us of the lack of busses and that most of the passengers stood should sit back down, they elected to start the APU so the air con would work.
Around 15 minutes later the busses rolled up and took us from stand 9 or 10 to the arrivals door adjacent to stand 5. No escalator working (taped off) and passengers queuing out of the as mentioned previously small entrance door. Another 30 minutes to get through the border before being hit with absolute bedlam in the baggage hall, LBA or possibly Swissport/Jet2 had been forced to shut down the carousels due to the amount of bags coming through, I can only presume the passengers who were stuck on aircraft awaiting busses or in the border queue were unable to collect their bags quick enough before more bags arrived from later arriving flights, I’ve never seen it as bad to be honest. Bags of all sizes strewn across the floor with a frantic looking Jet2 lady trying to orchestrate the baying mob of a Jet2 flight that had seemingly landed an hour previous. Lucky enough our bags were in a somewhat organised pile close by the exit doors enabling us to escape the mess - home to a welcome sofa and a brew of Yorkshires finest.
Conclusion, nothing we don’t already know, LBA arrivals is a shambles, no doubt because of the overwhelming volume of fights arriving in quick succession albeit this happens day in day out within the summer period, I hope our experience was simply out of the ordinary or a freak.
For what’s it’s worth as a non aviation follower but keen traveller my partner was astonished at how small LBA is especially considering the size of the region it serves and more so the state it’s in… for me the development cannot come soon enough!
I knew this probably would be the case after checking how many flights were going to arrive within our arrival period, 4 Jet2’s, 5 or 6 Ryanair’s including a Lauda, KLM and Balkan (European air charter). At that moment I decided not to tell my partner I felt it was going to be poor experience just so I could get her genuine reaction to the arrival experience.
A bit of context - she’s from South Yorkshire but lived In London for a fair chunk of her adult life. We’ve been away many times together using a multitude of airports but miraculously it was her first time using LBA.
We landed runway 14 at around 1620 and after taxiing down delta we turned onto November taxiway and stopped. Most stands were occupied and there was a Ryanair on our stand nearing readiness to push. After 5-10 mins the stand was vacated, we parked and everyone for some reason always stand up to await disembarkation. After what seemed and age in a hot aircraft the captain came onto the PA to inform us of the lack of busses and that most of the passengers stood should sit back down, they elected to start the APU so the air con would work.
Around 15 minutes later the busses rolled up and took us from stand 9 or 10 to the arrivals door adjacent to stand 5. No escalator working (taped off) and passengers queuing out of the as mentioned previously small entrance door. Another 30 minutes to get through the border before being hit with absolute bedlam in the baggage hall, LBA or possibly Swissport/Jet2 had been forced to shut down the carousels due to the amount of bags coming through, I can only presume the passengers who were stuck on aircraft awaiting busses or in the border queue were unable to collect their bags quick enough before more bags arrived from later arriving flights, I’ve never seen it as bad to be honest. Bags of all sizes strewn across the floor with a frantic looking Jet2 lady trying to orchestrate the baying mob of a Jet2 flight that had seemingly landed an hour previous. Lucky enough our bags were in a somewhat organised pile close by the exit doors enabling us to escape the mess - home to a welcome sofa and a brew of Yorkshires finest.
Conclusion, nothing we don’t already know, LBA arrivals is a shambles, no doubt because of the overwhelming volume of fights arriving in quick succession albeit this happens day in day out within the summer period, I hope our experience was simply out of the ordinary or a freak.
For what’s it’s worth as a non aviation follower but keen traveller my partner was astonished at how small LBA is especially considering the size of the region it serves and more so the state it’s in… for me the development cannot come soon enough!
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LBAYORKIE
Well-Known Member
- Dec 30, 2009
- 3,219
- 233
Thanks for that interesting but depressing summary. Theres got to be more the airport can do to manage these peaks. You cant blame people criticising the airport when they are presented with this kind if thing.
White Heather
Well-Known Member
Like what?
Ultimately there are too many flights arriving in too short a period of time for the terminal infrastructure to cope. If airlines are not able to re-schedule to spread out arrivals, then carnage is what we are going to get with a border force and baggage reclaim that struggles to deal with two 737s at the same time.
LBA know it. The plans are there to transform the experience. I'm told those plans are fantastic and worth waiting for.
For years we have all demanded more flights at LBA, and now we are getting them, but until the terminal extension is built, it's not going to be pretty.
On Friday afternoon, I played golf at Skipton. In the space of 30 minutes at least 10 737s passed over us turning onto 14 finals. There's no way that the airport can cope with that as it is. So - unless we want a reduction in flights until the extension is built we will have to take the pain. More buses won't help. It will simply worsen the situation in the terminal or result in queuing to get in the terminal which isn't allowed. So we either sit patiently on the plane, or on the bus, until it's our turn. If LBA could really do anything to resolve this, they would. But telling Jet2 and Ryanair to cut back flights isn't really an option,.and frankly, that's the only solution for now.
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@White Heather I couldn't agree more but I wish they would plaster the arrivals hall walls in CGI of the new arrivals hall with the words coming soon written all over it.
White Heather
Well-Known Member
I intend to suggest something along those lines at the meeting coming up. They need to do something to show passengers they understand the issues and show them what's coming, as soon as it's announced.
That’s of little comfort to the Spanish based crew operating ALC-LBA-ALC. We hadn’t even started disembarking the aircraft until after its scheduled departure time back to Spain. Yes it was a busy peak in a busy summers day but the infrastructure problem should not be passed onto the airlines and ultimately disrupting both arriving and departing passengers. The least they (LBA) can do is to get the arriving passengers off the aircraft, keeping them on the busses if needs be before filtering them into the terminal. This then at least doesn’t affect the departing passengers as well as the airlines schedule. It’s pretty basic, any away based arriving flights can only depart on time if the passengers are removed promptly on arrival, Ryanair and possibly Wizz have 25 min turnarounds so we could have the best departures experience going but if your not on time due to the inability to remove passengers from arriving flights then there’s just no point…
I’m just as frustrated as anyone would be if not more so, I’ve worked in and around LBA for nearly 20 years and yet we seem to have an inability to be proactive in approach. Year in year out nothing seems to change, just because they may be building a new arrivals hall shouldn’t mean they just accept the status quo. I wonder if there was ever the option to remove stand 5 and put a temporary tent like structure on it with lines of tensa barrier, yeah you loose a stand for a 737-300 but that could be parked on the taxiway which seems the norm anyway. If they did this they could potentially unload more passengers and just have them slowly queuing their way to the border. Not ideal but could alleviate any current slow disembarkations due to terminal capacity.
LBA4EVER
Well-Known Member
One thing is certain, the new extension and upgrade to the 1960s terminal is going to need to be one hell of an amazing upgrade on a Scale not seen before for a number of reasons, firstly to get rid of the bad stagma (you only have to listen to the passengers comments when using the airport) if the improvements dont really make much difference and because end of the day we are still using a not fit for purpose building bad stigma will remain with both the pax and the airline industry, and secondly with the way the current airlines using LBA are expanding even with terminal expansion it will only be a matter of time before the improvements are not sufficient enough, so the plans need to be top notch.
It really is such a shame the all new terminal was cancelled but thats the tories and snivelling snort face himself who put a stop to that, i believe if approved it would of been under contruction now?
It really is such a shame the all new terminal was cancelled but thats the tories and snivelling snort face himself who put a stop to that, i believe if approved it would of been under contruction now?
White Heather
Well-Known Member
You seem to ignore the fact that often, it's the airlines not running to schedule that causes the problem to be exacerbated. If they pick up delays, or arrive ahead of schedule, both of which occur regularly, then aircraft can all arrive together. Any airport can struggle in that scenario. Is that the fault of LBA or the airline?
Similarly, passengers dragging their heels in the terminal and delaying boarding can lead to delay in aircraft vacating the stand - sometimes by a lengthy time if they miss their ATC slot. That's not the airport management's fault either.
To offload all the 189 pax off a 737 800 and leave them packed into the coaches waiting to get into the terminal would be more unacceptable to passengers than sitting in the aircraft. It would also be a very inefficient use of the coaches and they would need quite a few additional ones if they spend half their time stood idle with a full load of passengers.
There is no easy answer. Each option has benefits to some and not others. If all flights turned up on time, the problems would lessen, but that would be a minor miracle. These are not problems unique to LBA though, although sometimes you would think they were.
As for the airline and it's crew - they face delays every day they work. It's part of the job, and the flight deck crew are well paid to do it. The airlines clearly aren't bothered as much as you think, given they are increasing LBA ops year on year, knowing full well that doing so will, for the time being, lead to delays at peak times. As long as the passengers keep booking, they'll keep flying.
Finger66
Well-Known Member
Well said WH. Too many people on here continue to bash LBA at the first given opportunity. Plans are afoot to rectify the problem and as these things take time we should all have a little more patience. We are still at best 2 years post-pandemic which set a lot of things back, not just with LBS. We should celebrate the way LBA has bounced back and it won't be long before we have a terminal to be proud of
LBAYORKIE
Well-Known Member
- Dec 30, 2009
- 3,219
- 233
I agree with all of the above however I dont think the Conservatives can be blamed for the new terminal being cancelled.
White Heather
Well-Known Member
But they can be blamed for procrastinating for over a year on a project that was only submitted as a 'formality' because it impacted on green belt. They certainly played their part but personally I think the pandemic, and the rampant inflation were behind the cancellation. I also feel sure Labour would have also delayed it and called it in had they been in power,.bowing to the 5 disgraceful Leeds MPs, and ignoring the democratic decision made by their own Council.
I'm afraid that too many people arriving at once is the problem and has always been the problem. It is a numbers game. There are too many of them.
The main problem has been, and is, a totally inadequate baggage claim area in terms of baggage belts and circulation space in the area. It wasn't built for the volume that it is now expected to handle. It is so dreary too and in summer too hot ensuring that the passenger frazzle factor remains high. Maybe a blood pressure tablet dispensing station would help matters?
Nothing will change until the new arrivals area is completed. And don't get me going about the escalator, although that wouldn't make any difference to this discusion!
The main problem has been, and is, a totally inadequate baggage claim area in terms of baggage belts and circulation space in the area. It wasn't built for the volume that it is now expected to handle. It is so dreary too and in summer too hot ensuring that the passenger frazzle factor remains high. Maybe a blood pressure tablet dispensing station would help matters?
Nothing will change until the new arrivals area is completed. And don't get me going about the escalator, although that wouldn't make any difference to this discusion!
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