Member Article

A tale of two airports

With Leeds Bradford Airport claiming 50,000 passengers over the Bank Holiday weekend, I thought it worth sharing a few thoughts about our recent family holiday to Portugal. We try to use LBA as it is close to where we live and so very convenient.

Leeds Bradford has a preferred taxi service that has access very close to the terminal building. Naturally, there is a premium charged to use this service against the various other taxi companies all of whom drop further away. We don’t live very far from the airport, about 8 miles, but a return trip with the official taxi service is pushing fifty quid.

You get dropped as close to the terminal building as is possible but then you begin to see the lack of joined up thinking. The trolleys, which disgracefully cost £1 to hire, are at the other end of the car park. The car park is open to the elements so when it is raining (and of course it was raining) you get soaked. All this whilst trying to operate a vending machine for large airport trolleys. It takes quite a tug to retrieve one.

Into the terminal and mercifully it was quiet. We were thought security pretty quickly and then headed for the Yorkshire Premier Lounge. Unfortunately there was very little “Premier” about it. The place was rammed with people. Several tables had been reserved, presumably for pre-paying guests, compounding the crush. The place was a disgrace with food all over the tables and the floor. I think perhaps they had tried just a bit too hard with pushing the “all you can drink” element and the lounge was filled with the kind of people you don’t really expect to see in such a place. To be honest we were glad when the gate was called.

By the time we got to board the plane it was bucketing it down with rain such that even a short time outdoors would leave you soaked. It was bad enough that all the passengers had to stand outside in this deluge without any form of shelter, but worse still that we all had to wait at the side of the pedestrian crossing until two passing vehicles had crossed. They didn’t stop for us. Passengers were literally soaked to the skin.

Once on the plane, the floor was soaking wet. A stewardess mopped it up and then chucked the bucket of dirty water onto my feet. There was no apology. A great start to the holiday!

Contrast this to our departure from Faro airport. Any vehicle can drop you next to the terminal. Trolleys (and they are free) are adjacent to the drop-off points. The VIP lounge whilst busy, was clean and the occupants were well behaved. Boarding the plane was via and airbridge so in the unlikely event it might have been raining, we would have stayed dry.

It is great having an airport just 15 minutes from where you live, but looking at the overall experience here and at our destination, they probably need to try just that little bit harder. Passenger numbers are growing, but take them for granted and they will vote with their feet.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jonathan Straight .