Leeds Bradford - General Thread

[rmac]

Having an interest in airports in general I like to get there as soon as possible, however my wife will rate an airport good or poor by the amount of shopping outlets available whilst we wait. The standard of restuarants and coffee shops also has a bearing so I would imagine that the general public want an airport to provide these 'diversions' to make the airport experience pleasant.

 

[Aviador]

I would tend to agree with you rmac (I mean your wife), Having lots of shops isn't necessarily important it's having 'things to do' and choice while you're there. One thing that lets LBA down for me is the airport only has one food and drink provider which is SSP who run all the food and drink outlets at the airport so they are able to fix the prices at whatever they want. Having a genuine choice would be so much better for the consumer.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

i would forsake all the shops, just for a nice comfortable seat to allow me to read a book/paper and await my flight. Not too much to ask but a lot of airports seem to fail to provide, especially in the booking in area, if your unfortunate to arrive hours before your flight, sometimes can be impossible to get a seat.

 

[White Heather]

Well you will have no bother getting a seat at Southend, Humberside or Doncaster, as half the time they are virtually empty! No surprise that they get voted as nice places to fly from when you have only a couple of hundred passengers in there at any one time. I have no idea what shops they have, but I cannot imagine they have better than LBA - they don't have the passenger throughput to attract too many shops.

So it seems to me that this survey is based upon how 'comfortable' an experience it is using the airport. To me that is flawed - an airport should be marked down to reflect the fact it has very few, or a very limited number of destinations or operators. After all, that is what an airport is there for. If you can't fly to where you want to be, it is failing meet its main purpose. DSA offers very few scheduled destinations - a couple from Ryanair, and Flybe, plus 4 or 5 from Wizz. Otherwise, it is mainly Thomson and the odd Thomas Cook charters. Not good for a 'Regional Airport'. Humberside is even worse and I doubt Southend has much more.

Based on that, all three of the above would have their marks docked considerably and LBA would climb the ratings. I would rather have the choice of flights and put up with a bit of overcrowding than have an airport with very limited choice.

 

[rmac]

White Heather I completely agree. No wonder DSA comes out near the top if you:-
1. Live near Doncaster. 2. Want to fly to Palma at 10am Sat morning and that is when the flight is. 3. Want an easy car park to use, few people in security, etc etc. The it is ok.
However if you live in Doncaster and want to fly to say Rome on Saturday morning the airport is not much good even if the car park and everything else is fairly empty.
If the survey was taken in the town centre would the airport get high ratings or would many say it was pretty useless.
Better to have a busier airport with more destinations and choice of flights and put up with a bit more overcrowding.

 

[SNOWMAN]

re Doncaster airport
I now youse a mix of lba and Doncaster, lba for jet 2 and Donny for Thomson reasons are very simple,more seating as only 2 737-800 out at the same time,very good car park and it is bookable thro Thomson at a good rate,shops are very limited but this does not bother me,there are 1 duty free 1 wh smiths and 1 weatherspoons.also a very good arrivals with 3 large carousels.also a very short flat walk to arrivals, no steps.i hope this gives you a bit of in sight into Donny and why it gets such good reports,i agree with white heather if it had more flights it would be poor but as it is now its very good.
regards
sm1

 

[Tarn Spotter]

have to say not all wonderful at Doncaster. If you try to drop people off close to the terminal, as soon as your wheels stop moving they try to slap a ticket on you, more civilised at LBA at least for your £2, you get time to get the cases in/out of the car. We stopped B & B locally, the lady owner put us through a training regime, to ensure she did not get a ticket, farcical, B & B wonderful though including free airport both ways run.
In addition with only 3 flights moving in the hour, they put cases on two of the three flights, Captain, advised either us or the cases had to move, in end the cases, with our captain, first officer helping as the number of baggage staff woefull.
If this is how Doncaster copes with limited traffic, no further commet needed.
As Which knows, you phrase the question to achieve the answer you need. Classic episodes of Yes Minister prove this.

 

[SNOWMAN]

tarn spotter
15min free in car park for drop off and collection at Donny.
sm1

 

[Aviador]

tarn spotter
15min free in car park for drop off and collection at Donny.
sm1

Leeds Bradford Airport has 1 hour free parking in the long stay car park with free access to the terminal by minibus. Disabled parking is also available in all the car parks.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

I collect documents from Servisair Cargo every morning. It is apparent that the airport authority do not clean in the vicinity of the steps leading up to Servisair because the area is permanently litted with hundreds of cigarette ends, empty bottles and litter in general. It looks a real mess and reflects badly on the airport.

Customers of PIA, BA and other airlines carrying cargo, as well as pax sending personal effect by air freight all visit Servisair Cargo, they must be disgusted- as I am.

I bleieve the problem is caused by 1) staff of a certain based airline using the area for 'fag breaks' and not using the bins and 2) the airport authority having no interest whatsoever in keeping the area clean (apart from putting up a sign in a non visble position warning that passes will be taken from anyone caught smoking there.

I have complained several times to LBa and they normall clean up the mess, only to leave it until my next complaint. clearly there is not regular cleaning schedule.

I am so mad I am going to get the local press interested. As a stunt I am thinking of sweeping up all the mess and 'transferring' it to the terminal building. I am interested to see if they apply the same standards to keeping passengers happy as they do customers to the cargo facility.

It occurred to me however that there should be a way to raise this via the airport committee- I believe White Heather has access. Does anyone know if an outsider can be given a hearing?

Thanks
LbaYorkie

 

[Tarn Spotter]

Surely this is an issue for the management of Servisair. If it is outside their unit they should clear up, even if the area not officially part of their land, it reflects badly on them. I am always sending staff out to clear rubbish, even when not on my land, clients visiting dont know who's land it is, rubbish should be moved by those who notice it.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

The fact is that it's not Servisairs responsibility, they pay rent to LBA which includes keeping the area clean. When I tell you that the toilets in the building are also the responsibility of the airport authority, and until I complained a couple of months back they had not been cleared for a couple of years- they were absolutely disgusting!

Remember that above Servisair is all LBA offices, I think its called the 'Dales Suite' and is used amongst others by Air Yorkshire.

I don't seen how LBA can possibly absolve itself of responsibility for the area, it's just as public as the passenger terminal.

LbaYorkie.

 

[White Heather]

LBA do not do their own cleaning - they have a contract with a cleaning company who are supposed to do it, so LBA management will be equally unhappy if it isn't being done properly. However, I doubt very much that they have dedicated contract management people working for them. Perhaps they should. I might get a job!! (I am a Contract Manager). LBA Yorkie - I have mentioned it before, but will do so again now. John Parkin (LBA Director) has said many times that he welcomes letters from people who have a complaint, and he will reply to all of them after looking into their concerns. As far as I am aware, he has always done so when members on here have written to him. I do attend the LBA Consultative Meetings but any questions have to be submitted in advance, and since the next meeting is almost upon us, it is probably too late now. I would suggest that you drop John Parkin a line, and I am sure he will respond. At the very least you will be raising your concerns in an official manner.

 

[Aviador]

White Heather

LBA brought the cleaning back in house quite some time ago..

 

[LBAYORKIE]

Thanks very much White Heather.

I spoke to the Director of Operations about a year ago, and got the brush off. I get the distinct impression that cargo is treated as a second class citizen, I think there is also a lot of ignorance on the subject of cargo and the contribution it makes.

When Bridgepoint took over my company was shipping well over 1000 tonnes per annum into LBA and we had an undertaking from a director at Bridgepoint (given in public at a meeting at Yorks Cricket Club HQ) that cargo would be developed. Since then needless to say nothing has happened and we now terminate everything at London and Manchester. In terms of the airline cargo handling charges alone at LBA we were paying out well over £100k per year! This now accrues to the aforementioned airports.

I will try putting my compliant in writing- and suggest that if I do not get satisfaction I will table an offical question for the committee. Fingers crossed!

 

[stevolba]

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/1064766 ... ds/?ref=mr , so with Yorkshire being named as Europes leading travel destination this should be a hint to the airport to maybe catch onto these potential European inbound pax by advertising oversees? Can this be done?

 

[White Heather]

Reported today by the airport MD that for that past month, over 100,000 pax per week have passed through LBA and that current numbers are expected to result in 3.2 million pax this year. Almost uniquely - despite the arrival of BA (whose pax numbers are steadily increasing), KLM pax numbers have increased. Despite the arrival of Monarch, who are doing extremely well, Jet2 pax numbers have also increased. Flybe pax numbers have increased year on year by the largest percentage of all LBA carriers. Every airline using LBA has increased its passengers from the airport this summer, indicating that despite the increase in flights and destinations from the airport, it is still failing to meet the demand from its catchment area. LBA's 'problems' therefore are all relative to increasing demand. in July, the equivalent of half the entire population of the Leeds Metropolitan District used LBA - or Wembley Stadium filled to capacity 6 times over. All in all, looking good.

 

[Aviador]

No news on the long awaited Masterplan update which was supposed to be show at this months meeting?

 

[White Heather]

Only profuse apologies that they are not yet in a position to share anything - and that they will shortly be employing the services of a suitable consultant to work with LBA on the production of the Masterplan. Also an assurance that there will be more to report at the December meeting - although I know you will all be saying we have heard that before.

There was obvious disappointment at the lack of a report on progress - reading between the lines I suspect this might be down to the resignation earlier this year of the person responsible for its development, and the subsequent recruitment of his replacement just prior to the June meeting. Based on what was said however, the delay is partly down to the fact that this Masterplan will be created with realistic targets that will need to be funded - not a list of pie in the sky wish lists that could never be funded. It is important therefore that they get it right, particularly in view of the significant increase in pax this year and expected further increases. Not only do they need to get the right things in the plan, but also in the right order for development. It was confirmed that the last Masterplan was published in 2006 and the Government White Paper recommended that the plans for each airport be reviewed every 7 years - so LBA's is due 2013. I understood that would still happen - although by the time they have gone through the extensive consultation period it could end up being early 2014 before it is finalised.

 

[lbaspotter]

So Heather did you get any gossip as to where the extra planned passengers are going to come from next year, as so far nothing extra has been announced recently regarding New routes for next summer.
Yes jet2 have added Reus, Kos and the reinstatement of the Budapest route, but it looks like they have quietly dropped routes to Olbia and La Rochelle while Geneva is also not on sale for next summer yet.
Monarch look to have dropped Rome but added extra flights to Barcelona and Palma while Thomson's have dropped routes to Sharm el sheikh and Mahon next summer as well.
Nothing has announced/confirmed by Ryanair as yet. But strong rumours of expansion, I just hope LBA pull it off otherwise I fail to see where the extra suppose passengers will come from.