Leeds Bradford Airport cannot blame delays on industry problems - Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Peter Gruen, Leeds.

The news that there are still lengthy queues and huge delays at Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA), with travellers missing their flights, is disappointing and shameful.

The much used excuse by LBA leaders that ‘this is an industry-wide problem’ is an unacceptable abrogation of their personal responsibility to their clients, namely would be passengers.

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The truth is that like most other airports they switched off resources during the pandemic and have proved to lack foresight and judgment regarding when to switch it back on.

Leeds Bradford Airport. Picture: Simon Hulme.Leeds Bradford Airport. Picture: Simon Hulme.
Leeds Bradford Airport. Picture: Simon Hulme.

That travellers would return at the first opportunity was frankly an easy punt; the suppressed demand was always there and likely to reach new heights as soon as restrictions were swept away and the enormous, time-consuming and stressful red tape was eliminated.

To be so severely caught out is an admission of failure of leadership and planning, which is ruining many families’ first get-aways in more than two years.

LBA has a natural catchment area and should be a premier league airport; but it is not – and has not been for a very long time.

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Most of the facilities are distinctly third-rate and there does not seem any improvement. The customer experience is poor and for people with mobility issues, it is exceptionally challenging and intolerable.

Of course I understand that recent ambitions at the airport have been thwarted and that this was a considerable setback.

However time to move on and focus on making every individual experience at the airport welcoming, business-like, comfortable, reliable and perhaps even enjoyable.

Otherwise people will look to better alternatives.