Leeds Bradford - General Thread

[lbaspotter]

Hi

Dose anyone know if there is any truth with the rumour that handling agent Aviance are about to pull out of LBIA shortly. Aviance have been here at LBA since they took over all of British Midland's Handling contracts back in the late 90's..

This would leave just 2 agents at LBA again. Servisair and Jet2 handling, Where would all the airlines that currently get handled by Aviance get sent if this is correct??

 

[WYIA]

Well i wish for the sake of the people who work for Aviance it was not true but i think it could be. i also heard this rumour and i think LGW Aviance base is closing and thats confirmed too.

This was an expected situation, BMI mainline was a good contract for Aviance but now that is gone and several rumours surround the future of bmi regional (ie- if purchased by flybe the contract would go to servisair) --- the future i not good for Aviance at LBA.

Servisair has always had the majority of airline contracts and despite the loss of jet2.com afew years back (who paid peanuts anyway) it countinues to hold most of the traffic. This is because they are very cheap and established worldwide.

Aviance only has Eastern, Manx2 & bmi regional. It did have Futura & Lte but these airlines are now both defunct so its big losses all round for them.

I hope if this does come to fruition the people involved manage to find new employment at the airport soon.

 

[Aviador]

Similar has also happened at Cardiff according to posters on the 'UK Airport Forum' Cardiff Forum.

 

[WYIA]

Servisair has always had the majority of airline contracts and despite the loss of jet2.com afew years back (who paid peanuts anyway) it countinues to hold most of the traffic. This is because they are very cheap and established worldwide.

It swings and roundabouts to a certain extent. At Cardiff Servisair are closing their operation (at least the passenger side anyway). All the big handlers seem to closing in some places, and gaining when others close elsewhere

I was reffering to the LBA servisair base lol, couldn't comment on CWL.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

It swings and roundabouts to a certain extent. At Cardiff Servisair are closing their operation (at least the passenger side anyway). All the big handlers seem to closing in some places, and gaining when others close elsewhere

Bristol has gone the other way.

For many years Servisair was the sole handler, apart from BA doing its own check-ins, but not the ramp, when it was at BRS.

However, in January this year Menzies took over the handling of easyJet from Servisair at Bristol. Servisair still handles everyone else, as far as I know.

 

[Aviador]

I can confirm that this is no longer a rumour as Aviance have announced that they are to close their LBA base and up to 60 jobs are at risk. Hopefully most if not all it's employees can TUPE over to Servisair as and when they leave LBA.

 

[lbia]

Wasn't it not long ago that bmi signed a contract to increase Aviance's operations at LBA?! Lets face it with bmi screwing Aviance around perhaps this is the iceberg regarding bmi and Leeds Bradford's relationship. Lets just hope Aviance staff get taken on by Servisair and maybe a few new staff will be taken on if FlyBe ever get round to opening this long awaited base!

 

[WYIA]

Sad but expected news,

Servisair I expect will now take on manx2.com, bmi regional (for now), Europa, Eastern etc so there is scope for some jobs for the ex Aviance workers. However, Servisair makes money and under cuts by making 1 person do the work of 3 so I would expect less than 30 new jobs on offer at Servisair.

bmi has posted significant loss results and reduction in passengers figures in the current Airliner World issue. A bad 12 months ahead for this carrier, its workers and people connected to it through ground jobs etc. I fear more bad news is yet to come from bmi.

On a brighter note, also in the current Airliner World - Out of nearly 60 commercial airports in the UK. LBA is ranked 16 in terms of traffic and passenger figures. Its not all doom and gloom.

 

[Aviador]

Leeds/Bradford eyes Atlantic link

Leeds/Bradford airport will have a direct scheduled transatlantic service by the end of next year, its commercial director has claimed.

Tony Hallwood said the airport was talking to one North American carrier and one UK carrier about operating a regular Toronto service starting next year.

He said the airport was also in talks with US carriers about operating a New York service.

Hallwood was talking after Leeds/Bradford’s application to expand its terminal with a bigger security area, more general floor space and a new departure lounge was unexpectedly turned down by the local council because of fears it would create more traffic congestion.

The airport was putting a package together to improve its bus service links, said Hallwood, who believed the application would be approved when it was resubmitted next month.

The expanded terminal will be key in the airport’s plans to expand its short-haul routes and secure a scheduled transatlantic service.

Jet2.com ran some one-off Christmas shopping flights to New York last year but Hallwood said the airport could support a scheduled operation.

The Leeds/Bradford boss added that he believed the region had great potential for a regular transatlantic service.

“We have a large catchment area and our aim is to stop the leakage of traffic across the Pennines to Manchester,” he said.

“We have 2.8 million passengers now and we are confident it will be five million by 2012.”

This summer the airport is gaining new services or increased frequencies to Dalaman, Rhodes, Newquay and Islamabad.

Longer-term short-haul expansion would concentrate on new services to Germany, Italy, Spain, France and Scandinavia, and the airport was talking to “a number” of no-frills carriers about Frankfurt, Hamburg and Copenhagen services, said Hallwood.

Next month will also see the start of a thrice-daily Gatwick service operated by Flybe, which will replace a link to London dropped by BMI.

Hallwood said 125,000 people a year used the BMI link to London, and claimed service on the rail link between Leeds and the capital was so poor that business travellers preferred to fly, especially those who were not going for meetings in central London.

Source

 

[pug]

I hope they can get something from this. Would the Toronto flight be a return of the charters which operated some years ago or could it be a scheduled flight a few times a week? New York could be the one to watch, get a good feeder airline like CO and you'd have the Yorkshire-North American market sewn up.

 

[lbia]

My bet is..

Toronto with Thomas Cook and a 187 config B757-200 or Air Transat with an A310.

US with Continental on a B757. Jet2 have confirmed that the New York charters are back for this coming christmas, to be announced soon!

 

[White Heather]

Whilst TCX might offer the better service for those flying, I suspect a few people would love to see Air Transat back at LBA though after a very long break. They operated weekly charters in the 80's using Tristars, round about the same time that Wardair operated their 747 to Toronto. It is hard to imagine that 20 years ago we had two operators weekly doing Toronto!!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Markets for Canada sometimes seem hard to determine.

For example, in the South West Exeter Airport has a weekly summer charter flight to Toronto Pearson (has had it for many years) operated by Air Transat for Canadian Affair with an A310 (outbound via another airport, in the past BHX or STN - not sure what this year or whether for commercial or operational reasons), whilst the larger Bristol and Cardiff airports have no Canadian route at all.

In summer 2007 Exeter had two weekly Canadian routes - the Pearson and a Globespan to Hamilton.

In summer 2008 the Globespan was moved to Bristol but was a disaster, carrying half the number of passengers the Exeter operation carried the previous year even though it had competition to the real Toronto from EXT.

Globespan announced it was going to continue the merry-go-round and move the Hamilton from Bristol to Cardiff for summer 2009 but that was then axed.

Hard to fathom from an outsider's viewpoint but if anyone can get a Toronto route back for LBA Tony Hallwood is the man.

 

[Aviador]

I have been informed that the Aviance base will close on the 1st June. The staff are to transfer to Servisair under the TUPE regulations.

 

[WYIA]

Yep, Today Aviance handed over its Airline contracts and most staff to Servisair at Leeds, leaving it as the only ground agent at the airport with only Jet2.com not using them - as they self handle.

Eastern Airways, Manx2, Air Europa, Austrian Arrows & BMI regional are the airlines that Aviance held contracts for.

 

[Aviador]

I have just been reading an article in the YEP concerning the new Leeds Arena. The project is to receive 18m pounds of funding from money acquired by the sale of Leeds Bradford Airport.

One of the annoying things about this is that the YEP claims that 18m pounds is to come from the council, a further 18m is to come from the Yorkshire Development Agency. A further 43m is to come from council borrowing. (yes 43 million pounds from borrowing!)

Now I thought that one of the reasons why the airport had to be sold was because the council claimed that it couldn't borrow money on such a scale to fund the work to bring the airport up to standard? Simple calculations suggest that £43m would have provided LBA with enough money to carry out the 18m proposed terminal extension work leaving sufficient money to do the required runway resurfacing work with some spare cash for various other jobs.

I am outraged that this has been allowed to happen.

 

[rmac]

I also read that this morning and was shocked to think that a council can receive millions from the sale of the airport that they cannot fund the needed expansion programme it so badly needs, then pour money into another project, the Leeds arena, and borrow money too, then to add insult to injury their Planning dept delays the needed consent to allow the new owners of the airport to carry out the expansion that they all knew was overdue on the grounds that surface access transport to the airport is below standard, something they should have addressed years ago, and now expect Bridgepoint to do more. I can hardly believe it!. Maybe Bridgepoint wish they had never heard of Leeds City Council and THEIR airpòrt.

 

[wawkrk]

Where would the council like the stars to fly into, Sheffield? Then they may as well use Sheffield arena.

 

[White Heather]

This all only reaffirms my opinion of Leeds City Council with regard to airport matters. I am proud of my City, but the Council are a waste of space when it comes to the airport. Having said that, we have to remember that Leeds only owned 40% of the airport, so 60% of the redevelopment money had to come from the other Councils. Even if Leeds decided to cough up, the rest (Bradford, Wakefield, Calderdale and Kirklees) had to do the same. In all probability they knew that priorities varied from Council to Council, and the further away from the airport you go, the less inclined they would be to pay out big money to develop it. After all, the majority of people in Kirkless/Calderdale will, no doubt, use Manchester anyway.

Even so, having made an excuse for the Council, they have held the airport back over planning applications so many times, I haven't got time for them.

 

[wawkrk]

Does anybody know why on the departures board, are the names of the airports always shown for flights to France?