Experience at Leeds Bradford Airport left a poor impression - Yorkshire Post Letters

With all the sad news of Doncaster Airport’s imminent closure, I read with particular interest the Yorkshire Post business feature of Friday, 21 October 2022 regarding the proposed $300m investment by Ryanair in Leeds Bradford Airport, which will, amongst other things, increase flights this winter and apparently support 90 jobs there (‘Ryanair invests in its flights at airport’).

Coincidentally, we returned from Spain on the very day of the article, flying from Alicante to Leeds Bradford Airport on Ryanair. This was not a good experience.

Our flight took off three and a half hours late from Alicante because the incoming service was delayed by poor weather conditions at Leeds Bradford Airport.

Fair enough, we thought, weather conditions are not under the control of either the airline or the airport.

However, there was absolutely no excuse for what happened next.

Having landed three and a half hours late at Leeds Bradford Airport, we were then obliged to sit on the aircraft for almost 45 minutes as there were no buses available to take us to the terminal building.

When the buses did finally arrive, all passengers were obliged to disembark from the front of the aircraft as there only appeared to be one set of steps available to us, thus wasting significantly more time.

All of this was finally topped off with a 30 minute wait in the drizzle for the airport bus to Leeds which, upon arrival, quickly became full, leaving almost half its passengers waiting behind at the airport. I wonder if they are still waiting!

I have to admit that we have usually travelled from Manchester Airport to Spain by Ryanair and have, over the years, had very few problems.

We live in Yorkshire, however, and so we thought we should at least try out our ‘local’ airport, with a view to using it on a regular basis. As you can see, with our journey taking almost 14 hours, this proved to be a really poor choice.

Head of Communications, Jade Kirwan, informed readers that Ryanair would be delivering a 20 per cent increase in capacity at Leeds Bradford Airport and that they already support 1,000 jobs there.

I suspect most of these jobs are connected not to Ryanair but to Jet 2, whose aircraft were swarming with ground staff as we sat waiting to disembark from our vastly delayed (Ryanair) flight.

Ryanair flights are generally quick turn-arounds. Arriving passengers are disembarked and departing ones are loaded within a very short, efficient timescale so that each aircraft can fulfil a very demanding timetable.

This works well for Ryanair and usually also delivers for the customer - flights are generally on time, reliable and relatively low cost.

If our experience of using Leeds Bradford Airport last week is the norm, the 45 minute wait for disembarkation will not fit well with Ryanair’s business model.

I fear therefore that, unless the airport is able to up its act considerably (and quickly if we are talking of increased winter flights), then any hopes of Ryanair investing their money in LBA will be very quickly dashed.