YP Letters: Unhappy landings at Leeds Bradford Airport

JUST to confirm that our major airport seems to lack the ability to cope with the travelling public.

My wife and I arrived at Leeds Bradford Airport on Sunday, September 18, at 04.30 to join the queue in the airport’s major airline departure area to find the luggage conveyor system was not working.

It seemed to be an age before anyone decided to implement Plan B or even Plan C. To say that it was chaotic is an understatement. Our plane was one hour, 30 minutes late taking off. Ten departures in two hours by that airline is ambitious to say the least.

On our return, we landed and then waited while another plane touched down before our plane could access the allocated unloading point.

We then proceeded to the passport control queue which took 25 minutes to filter through. An announcement was made to say that there had been several arrivals causing the delays.

The arrivals website showed that the previous plane had touched down 30 minutes earlier and the one before that 15 minutes earlier. Busy?

From: Charles Jones, Huddersfield.

YOUR recent letter from Professor John Taylor prompts me to add my own comments on the distressing Leeds Bradford Airport.

I say distressing because as a frequent flyer and a Yorkshireman, some years ago I gave up using LBA owing to cramped conditions and unhelpful staff. Last week I gave it another try. In the last five to six years, the airport has become astonishingly, even dangerously, congested in front of the entrance with multi curved lanes of taxis, buses and pedestrians. Inside the airport the security section is reminiscent of an overcrowded zoo.

Have the staff improved in the last few years? Absolutely not.

Many years ago I might have described LBA as ‘third world’. Not today. I travel to many third world airports and any one of them would be ashamed to admit to the conditions of Yorkshire’s LBA. The underlying problem is clearly one of space.

It seems there are three possible solutions:

1. Continue as is and remain a laughing stock of an airport.

2. Rent some bulldozers and clear away 1,000 homes around the airport and build a decent place.

3. Move the whole caboodle out to Church Fenton, adjacent to the A1M and install a rail track at the same time.

Why did Leeds City Council sell the airport and sink it into this mess? I have no idea who the present owners Bridgepoint are, but surely someone somewhere has to start asking some very serious questions.

HS2 for the few too costly

From: Keith Turnbull, Ryton Way, Doncaster.

FURTHER to Ron Firth’s recent letter on high speed rail travel. As with most major projects in this country, the installation time and the cost will be vastly exceeded. The value of HS2 is spurious at best, and I suspect the cost of using this alternative route to London will be way out of the reach of normal citizens.

So, as Mr Firth witnessed the First Class on ECML being full of businessmen and women, these are the potential users of any high speed, high cost alternative.

What this amounts to is the people who don’t use this service being bitten twice for the pleasure of its existence.

Firstly for their tax contribution towards its manufacture and installation, and secondly for the extra cost element of goods and services provided by the companies whose executives claim travel expenses for using the service.

As Mr Firth witnessed, these businessfolk use the train as a travelling office, so why is a reduced journey time of 15 mins to half an hour such a big deal?

All we need is a more efficient timely service that we can all afford and rely on.

Speaking out on migration

From: Janet Berry, Hambleton.

I HAVE always admired the current Archbishop of York but never more when he has had the courage to speak out about immigration (The Yorkshire Post, October 1).

He points out the fact that all asylum seekers in Calais have come through the Schengen agreement (which we never signed up to) to try and enter Britain. He points out that the Schengen countries need to resolve the problem, because they have entered Europe because of free movement.

He points out that Tony Blair is to blame in part because of the disastrous invasion of Iraq and he suggests that Britain should police the Libyan coast to prevent the trafficking of migrants and stop them getting into boats. Very brave comments and he has spoken up about an awkward truth which the Schengen states should listen to.

There should be some tough decisions made to stop people from wanting to come to the UK, which must seem like the promised land. If immigrants were not allowed benefits, social housing and were not able to access free NHS care, this surely would stop people from heading to Britain. How brave for the Church’s senior cleric to voice opinions our Government is too weak to do. I note that Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who I think is brilliant, has agreed with John Sentamu.

Surely it is members of our Government who should be standing up to the French when they threaten to re-locate the Jungle to England?