Leeds Bradford Airport must decide between business and holiday passengers

LEEDS Bradford Airport chief executive Hywel Rees is attempting to achieve what many others before him have tried and failed to do. That is to make the airport truly international, not in name only.

The three fundamental problems at Yeadon being location, weather and access. No amount of terminal building upgrade will alter these facts.

Since my first flights from Yeadon to Heathrow in the early 1950s, the slightest adverse weather conditions closed the airport. I believe it is marginally improved today, not withstanding the huge improvement in technical capabilities of modern aircraft.

Holiday traffic may put up with poor access and very rudimentary arrival and departure facilities. Business travellers will not.

They want to be able to fly directly into LBA, be met easily and taken speedily to their business meetings. The proposed new station and liveried buses will be no attraction to them.

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Editor