Why tolerate 
the greed of
air industry?

YOU kindly published my letter (Yorkshire Post, April 23) headlined “Wind-swept walk exposes airport revamp sham”.

This letter referred to the approximately 100 yards of 
bleak uncovered windswept tarmac that passengers have to walk to the terminal from 
the drop-off/pick-up point at Leeds Bradford International Airport.

What was more surprising was that we have had no comment at all from the airport. So I sent the airport company a copy of my letter by email a couple of weeks ago, through their website asking for a response, to which I have had no reply.

It appears to me that this is due to apathy by the people of Yorkshire who seem to be 
happy with the fact that the airport company has spent millions of pounds only on 
glitzy retail facilities at LBA – and are happy with the drop-off charges.

Meantime passengers have to suffer in the rain, snow and winds due to the lack of an enclosed walkway when they tramp from the exposed drop off points or return to road transport.

Even once you have made it to the terminal building, you then have to trudge out into the sleet and snow again and queue at the steps of the airliner, with water running down your necks, due to the lack of adequate air-bridges to board planes.

The airport company is obviously very aware that they can depend on the current apathy of the Yorkshire people, so that they do not even have to bother to rebut these criticisms of their lack of essential passenger facilities.

Where is the Yorkshire spirit that should be demanding an improvement in essential passenger facilities and much 
less glitzy rip-off retail facilities or are you just prepared to be taken for granted by the airport company? Why has the local council or our MPs not demanded an improvement in these facilities?

From: Bob Watson, Springfield Road, Baildon.

ACCORDING to a report in Business Tuesday (Yorkshire Post, May 21) budget airline Ryanair saw its annual profits rise by a substantial 13 per cent.

This would appear to be largely due to income from “extra services” such as baggage, reserved seating and onboard food and drink.

However, it says it all for this (and other) money-grabbing airlines when one considers 
that these “extra services” 
were, not too long ago, all included in the basic price of 
the flight.

That they have been allowed to now consider these as add-ons really is not good enough. Ryanair and others should be totally ashamed of this totally unacceptable practice. That they no doubt will not says it all.

Minister right to slam GPs

From: Susan Dennis, Laverton, Ripon.

I TOTALLY agree with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s comments regarding the poor support and commitment that GPs currently give to their community. It appears harder to get an appointment with your GP than the Queen!

They finish their week’s work at Friday lunchtime, do not work any weekends or nights, and never on Bank Holidays.

The majority of them seem 
to be able to earn sufficient money by working “part-time”, (thanks to Patricia Hewitt back in 2004), so it is not surprising that they do not know their patients’ names.

A friend of mine who had been diagnosed with a deficiency in vitamin D went to see his GP and asked what he should include in his diet to address this deficiency. The answer was: “I don’t know – perhaps I should, but perhaps you could just Google it when you get home!”

Does a GP really need six years training for that response?

The bankers 
deserve it

From: Bob Swallow, Townhead Avenue, Settle.

SIR Mervyn King tells us that it is time to stop demonising bankers (Yorkshire Post, May 20). What a load of codswallop.

There are bankers and bankers. First there are the staff at your local branch, I certainly would not wish to demonise them. They are just the poor beggers who get all the flak from the fallout of the gross mishandling of the bank finances by the faceless men and women who will never have served a customer in their lives.

No Sir Mervyn. They, the whizz kids in their ivory towers, deserve all they have coming to them and the poor dears do at least have their bonuses and “modest” pensions to look forward to.