Using Leeds Bradford Airport Questions & Reviews

[Aviador]

I can fully sympathise with you whoshotjimmi and it sounds very much like my experience only a few weeks ago. There are a lot of whiners and moaners out there who complain about anything and everything and I found it difficult to be honest about the facility without sounding like one of them. I tried to make my review of our experience at Leeds Bradford Airport as honest as possible. In reality, looking back I should have been much harsher as my experience was far from perfect. Sadly, those in charge of the facility seem like they are either not bothered or don't have the money to do anything about it. We live in hope that one day somebody will take the airport on and give it the TLC it deserves.

 

[whoshotjimmi]

The thing is, Aviador, I do not have my head so far up my backside to understand that I arrived at a busy time and the capacity of the arrivals system was being well exceeded. What irks me is that it has been the same for many, many years and, every time I arrive into LBA, it completely negates what I believe is now a very good departure experience. It would take so little to make it so much better yet nobody is bothered.

I will not, however, accept the taxi situation. There must be a service level agreement in the contract between Arrow and LBA. If there isn't, someone didn't do their job right at LBA. If there is, Arrow are not honouring it or LBA are not enforcing it. Either way, there should be a clear process in place for the management of the taxi provision. This was a long way from evident.

 

[AirBingley]

I arrived back Monday afternoon and have to say my departure experience was excellent - 30 minutes from home to the cafe on the first floor via the Travelex desk!

The arrivals experience was similar to the one being discussed - lack of belt space and taxis. Passport was about 10-15 minutes which was fine as bags were being offloaded.

LBA allocated belt 1 to 2 simultaneous flights (the smallest belt) - the first being Ryanair from Malta then Jet2 from Barcelona. The other belts had arrivals listed but no pax wasting for luggage. So we stood patiently waiting for the FR pax to claim their bags in that tiny corner and then collected our own while 2 other belts remained unused. I know short notice changes may not always be possible for operational reasons but surely common sense could have prevailed?

Our bags were first off the belt so it was still 30 minutes from landing to bags which beats MAN hands down.

The taxi rank, well there was a queue. I got to the front and the operator shrugged her shoulders and said 'there's a 30 minute wait luv'! (what a welcome that would have been to a foreign visitor!!!!) I asked the driver why the delay and it was apparently because lots of drivers are on holiday and they could not back fill. Also if you pre book via the website you get preference in the portakabin but not the wait after you've checked in for your taxi!

 

[SNOWMAN]

hi all

LBA has this taxi problem every year at this time,this week sees the muslim festival of eid al-adha and sees a lot of the devout muslims take the week off.i have also found the office staff for arrow taxis at LBA not very helpfull.
regards
sm1

 

[Aviador]

Hi Snowman 1

As whoshotjimmi pointed out, Leeds Bradford airport will have a service level agreement with Arrow which is meant to prevent a reduction in the quality of service during festival periods whether it be Eid, Christmas or any other festival. My own experience of the service at the beginning of the month wasn't particularly good either so I'm not convinced the poor service is down to Eid.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Hi Snowman 1

As whoshotjimmi pointed out, Leeds Bradford airport will have a service level agreement with Arrow which is meant to prevent a reduction in the quality of service during festival periods whether it be Eid, Christmas or any other festival. My own experience of the service at the beginning of the month wasn't particularly good either so I'm not convinced the poor service is down to Eid.

[offtopic]I was at BRS a few weeks ago at lunchtime and the queue outside the Arrow offices must have been 40 or 50 people with most seemingly sitting in the sun awaiting the return of the next taxi from its current journey so that they could then travel in it home.[/offtopic]

 

[Tarn Spotter]

have to say we left LBA for Budapest last week and returned after 4 nights.
If I was too mark the two airports LBA would receive a far higher mark.
We left Budapest from gate B4. This gate serves B2 to B6 inclusive and there was I counted a total of 14 seats in the gate area for passengers, 6 of these for disabled. After going through the gate you are then marshalled in what can only be described as a cattle shed with no seats no air con (outside temperature) was around mid 30's and in side the shed I would say upper 40's.
All passengers on our plane were just pushed in to an area that would not adequte for be 100 people, certainly not a full 737. Every 2 minutes there was a tannoy announcement asking us all to move forward, even though the front people had their noses pressed against the door
You then once let out of this area have to walk along a similar covered walkway as Leeds to your plane.
Frankly I always use our local Leeds taxi company or Uber rather then Amber who have had a poor record even before they got the airport contract, as a local this company has had a shocking record over the years and I am sure they have paid LBA a nice price to secure the contract.
Have to say from touch down and the long walk from stand 12, our cases were there before us at LBA and we had clearered the terminal within 30 minutes of touch down and around three planes arrived at the same time in the mid afternnon rush.
Four weeks ago my son landed at 12.15am at Manchester, he got his cases at 14.10, just under two hours after landing, 45 minutes at LBA in security seems speedy.
Our cases at Budapest took around 45 minutes and at Rome over 2 hours recently.
I am not sure at any airport 45 minutes is a long wait, certainly I would be delighted if we made it through in this time.
I certainly wont defend Amber but I assume they can only take action if users complain to the airport, I dont know whether White Heather knows if regular compliants are made.
LBA is not perfect I have been though 6 times so far this year and we will again in 10 days, never yet have we taken anywhere near 45 minutes and all but one has been an arrival around 2pm a very busy time. Planes can be early or late making staffing of the passport area very difficult, the E.U. working rule directive makes staffing cover nearly impossible for a business today, especially one where you cannot control the numbers, its not just a LBA management issue.
LBA is not perfect, but in relation to other european airports I feel is above average, certainly Manchester and EMA could learn some lessons.

 

[Aviador]

Tarn Spotter.

It's difficult to make a comparison with Budapest and Leeds Bradford because Budapest airport is far a bigger airport handling over 9m passengers annually. The airport there certainly looks impressive even if they are disorganised.

Image by Ato 01 on Wikipedia

I agree, LBA is a good airport and I will continue to use it even after making some criticism. It is a long way off been the worst airport there is, however, there is still significant room for improvement.

Just a quick point re on-site airport authorised taxi company, just to confirm it is Arrow Taxis we are talking about and not Amber Tarn Spotter mentions in his post.

 

[White Heather]

Re: Passengers & Frequent Flybaers [Questions & Reviews]

I can confirm that Arrow Taxis have not been the subject of any complaints at the consultative committee, but I personally messaged LBA earlier this week about the number of recent complaints about them. In June, I arrived back in the early hours on the Jet2 TFS flight - and was fortunate to get out of baggage re-claim quickly - 30 minutes after landing. I was told by Arrow there was a shortage of driver due to many of the drivers being off work due to the Muslim fasting at the time. Despite that I got a taxi in 10 minutes with a very pleasant driver. The fare, to Cookridge, was a rather steep £13.12 - all of 4 miles going the long way round.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

Avaidor:
Budapest is far from disorganised. At the gate you even use the bar code on your ticket yourself to open the glass screen to proceed to the plane, its fully automated to this point, in fact if you want your hand held or are nervous not the airport for you. If the machine does not accept your bar code it could be because your trying for the wrong flight or your printer ink not good enough
When we left there we were leaving from gate B4 and another aircraft from B5, both use the same gate (up to 5 flights can use this one gate there are 5 readers, one for each flight), the bar code reader on the left of the two for B4 on the right for B5, there was no signs saying which to use, just green lights showing they were active.
Those queue jumpers who thought they could use the right hand reader just found it did not open the door in front of them.
There are no staff on duty it is your responsibility to get to the right gate and use the right bar code reader.
As I say no seats to sit down on and then after this point you enter the cattle shed where all the automatic loading comes to a halt and you get the inspection of passports and boarding cards it extremely crammed conditions and unpleasant in hot weather, but in winter and the walkway could be very unpleasant and as open to the elements very cold.
Yes as the picture shows the airport in the main is very modern, but as with any operation when humans get involved it can break down.
The Hungarians have embraced technology, however, often modern is replaced by turning the clock back 50 years, those of use old enough to have lived through both times interesting, others could be thrown. One moment you can be putting your ticket in a modern reader, the next in an old mechanical clocking on machines where you have to pull down a leaver to verify your ticket, easy for us oldies, mind boggling for youngsters.
One thing about LBA I failed to complain about is the new large plastic bins at security, I could hardly lift mine after I put everything in, needed two hands and therefore had to leave my cabin case and return for it after putting the tray on the rollers.

 

[Galaxy]

Just a little trip review from LBA – Limoges (France), where I went last Thursday, returning on Sunday night. The flights were with Ryanair, and I paid £77 return each for two of us, I found the prices using Skyscanner back in June, and I booked them on the Ryanair website then. About 6 weeks before the flights, Ryanair changed the time of the outbound flight from 17:10 to 07:40, which basically gave us an extra day in Limoges.

We arrived at LBA for 06:20, a taxi from Cookridge cost £9.50 with Arrow (expensive for the journey length as they add an airport surcharge as an invisible extra). Looking at the number of early flights, I was expecting the airport to be much busier, and was prepared to pay for a fast track if necessary. However, there was no queue at all beyond the security point where boarding passes are checked.

Security was easy to get through, but they were being absolutely meticulous, having now seen the Look North article on the recent security lapse there, I realise why. From arriving at the airport by taxi, to sitting in the departure lounge took around 15 minutes – pretty good!

Departures was fairly busy with a mixed bag of pensioners, young families, business folk and stag do’s. The gate was announced early at 7am as being Gate 6, which turned out to be one I hadn’t used before, which was a 5 minute walk down the whole length of the outside ‘bus shelter’ construction to a pre-fab / portacabin affair. At any other airport you know this kind of building is temporary until something better is built….why do I get the feeling that at LBA this will become a permanent fixture!?

There was a bit of confusion in the portacabin as gate 6 and 7 passengers mingled, some seemingly oblivious to their airline, and quite possibly destination. We stood uncomfortably in a queue for 25 minutes until we were allowed to process to the flight (seating in the portacabin is inadequate, but then there really isn’t room for any more seats…so maybe they should have built a bigger shed).

Aboard the plane we had seats 8E and 8F and, pushed back and took off perfectly on time, which I was very pleased about. It was a beautiful morning, and the runway 32 take-off afforded some marvellous views, see here:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsrGeaWmLLc[/video]
(before anyone says anything “small electronic devices placed in flight mode may be used during the entire flight”).

It was cloudy for most of the 95 minute flight, although a small break over Hampshire, allowed me to get some good zoomed footage of Portsmouth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13kxyJXgVMI .

Landing at Limoges was pleasant, the scenery inbound was partly obscured by some very low cloud, which gave an interesting effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_ensFMXq58 .

Limoges Airport, is slightly bigger than my garden shed, but modern enough and fit for the purpose of one aircraft at a time. It was a very short walk from the aeroplane into the terminal building and a 5 minute queue for passport checking. The downside to Limoges Airport is a complete and utter lack of public transport, so to get into town cost 24 Euro in a taxi (only 4 miles). Fortunately we shared the ride with a nice couple from Guiseley (Adam and Emma – hello if you’re reading this).

Limoges itself is a very lovely place to spend a relaxing few days. Plenty to see and do, cathedrals, churches, old town, gardens, parks, shops, events taking place, great bars, restaurants etc. We had a fab time, and the weather really helped, I’ve made quite a detailed cityscape film, so if you’re interested in visiting Limoges, then have a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_g4nivImAY .

We stayed right in the centre at the Mercure Hotel – very nice it was too, here’s my review of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpfUUjvHFY8 .

On the Saturday we visited Oradour-sur-Glane, the site of a World War II atrocity, where 642 villagers were murdered by the Nazis in revenge for activity by the French Resistance. This was a 2 Euro 30 minute bus ride from Limoges railway station – I definitely recommend this if you do go to Limoges. My film of the village is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSAmcfH4JQg . There are just three buses a day in each direction, it is bus number 12, and we got the 12:35 bus there from Limoges Bus Station (next to the train station), and the 17:35 bus back. There were about 10 people on each, which were 60 seater coaches.

On the Sunday we lazed around until 16:30, and then took a taxi back to the airport (this time costing 32 Euro – Sunday rates) for a 18:15 flight. From getting out of the taxi to being sat in a tiny cramped departure lounge took 7 minutes. My tip here is don’t go too soon back to the airport, as there is literally NOTHING to do at Limoges Airport other than people watch, and that got pretty boring soon.

We boarded and took off on time (same seats on the way back), here’s some shots from the take-off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f52j8gB-s3E .

The return flight was 102 minutes, and we landed on Runway 14 at dusk, here’s some footage of the approach, landing and taxi:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po0OMBr58r0[/video] .

It was a long walk back down the bus shelter, up the stairs and along the corridors to passport control, made even worse by us being stopped while an entire other flight who came up the escalators were allowed to gazump us to passport control. There were 6 people working on passport control, and it took around 15 minutes to get through.

The Arrow taxi back to Cookridge from the Airport cost £10.20 (why is it 70p more the other way).

All in all this was a good experience. Limoges was lovely, and I would certainly go again. LBA and Ryanair delivered the goods, it wasn’t perfect, but it did what it said on the tin, and of course I will certainly be using both airport and airline again in future.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Great videos. I particularly like the labels of the towns/cities flown over. Superb early morning weather and visibility for the take-off and climb out from LBA. Many thanks.

 

[Aviador]

Comprehensive review and great videos Galaxy.

 

[White Heather]

Thanks for the review, although not sure why the Spanish should be surprised, as every time I have flown into a Spanish airport and been bussed to the terminal, it has been rammed - which is far worse when the temperature outside is 85c. As for winding in and out of temporary b uildings - a few years ago I was bussed between terminals at LHR and around the time T2 was being built. That bus was weaving in and out of a mixture of dump trucks, bulldozers, lorries and A380's!

 

[Tarn Spotter]

have to say on our recent returns to LBA from malaga and budapest we have parked at stands 11 and 12. Would love to have been able to have jumped on a packed bus rather then made to walk an impossible distance including stairs.
Were going to have to ask for wheelchair assistance in future as we cant take the risk of being dropped at these gates again, we dont really need, but last time we asked for wheel chairs to gate 11 having not booked in advance, told we may have to wait around 30 minutes with no seating, not really an option.

 

[Aviador]

I have opened a new poll for this thread.

Travel To & From The Airport Experience; Departure Experience; Arrival Experience; Where Do You Live (Distance from LBA)

I have set the poll up so people can change their votes each time they travel so the poll result can change over time. If people are as honest as possible the vote will accurately reflect the opinion of forum users.

 

[SNOWMAN]

a 3rd class ride and the use of the lift or the escalator is more appealing to me than a 1st class walk and then be faced with bxxxxy stairs and more walking.
just my opinion.
sm1

 

[Aviador]

I had my first taste of LBA diversion last night. What a nightmare! I was due out of Aberdeen with Eastern at 16.05, but the signs were poor as we sat without any information at all until after the planned departure time. I have to say, for a premium-cost airline, Eastern's communication was shocking. We relied on a passenger's wife back in Bradford for the news that it was foggy at LBA. We were told there'd be no more news until 17:50! So I went to the bar, had a pint, perused the menu and at 17:15, jus as I was about to order food, we were told to go to the gate to board. We left at 17:55 in the knowledge that we'd probably end up at Humberside or Teesaaard. We circled Leeds for over an hour and then got sent back to Teessaaard. What a hole. They serve only two destinations (Aberdeen and Amsterdam) and the one facility (WH Smith) was shut. The staff were hiding (I kid you not) to avoid a confrontation with us.

We eventually had a local taxi firm mini bus turn up. He took us straight to the local McD's as everyone was starving and we got into LBA at 22:30 and had to wait half an hour for a cab, so got home at 23:15. Knackered!

SSC

This is a post from another forum. I have been lucky enough to have never experienced a flight diversion but this persons opinion just hits home what it means on a personal level. He/she may think twice about flying from LBA next time.

 

[jason1-11]

After all the weather issues in November and December, I’ve been thinking how we can improve the product available when travelling to and from West / North Yorkshire by air.

We all know that LBA struggles to handle aircraft that are only CAT1 and to an extent CAT 2 due to the large number of occurrences in winter when the Airport is in LVP. The Airports and the Regions reputation is tarnished by this as potential air services from the region are either not operated at all or at a level far below anyone’s expectations . Wouldn’t a “blue sky option “ for the greater benefit of the area be that the regional types i.e. Eastern, Loganair Flybe and possibly Stobart eventually move their ops to Leeds East as and when the facilities are fit for purpose and leave LBA to cater for the heavier traffic?

Appreciate there is still an issue with low viz to the East of the city, but at 30 ft above sea level, the number of occurrences would be reduced significantly and we know that Chris Makin has big plans for the airfield including commercial use.

Thoughts?

 

[lbaspotter]

It's a yearly problem and it looks like it's not going to get resolved anytime soon. Everyone on here knows how and what I feel about this subject and its been done over and over again on this forum so I'm going to have to say NO COMMENT for now as will just go over the same old posts and have the same old argument as usual which has been done to deaf now.

Sorry