Yorkshire needs a better airport
Please let me clarify. LBA will never be as big as MAN - that is because it is in the wrong location. If it had been built near to the junction of the M62 / M1 70 years ago it would now be serving as an airport for the entire north midlands and north of England. That would be the ideal location for an airport well linked with road and rail and equally spaced at the centre of the main conurbations. It would now be moving more people than MAN is.
That never happened obviously which has allowed Manchester to grow to a size that in reality it should never have reached. Unfortunately for Manchester Leeds city region is not small and infact the Yorkshire region creates more wealth than the NW region and so yes emotion does come into the issue. It is high time that our far from perfect airport has just a fraction of the money that MAN has had spent on it. The councils sold the airport because they could not invest an amount of money that would bring the airport up to scratch. Both the council and Bridgepoint know that there are millions of potential passengers but to get them not only must the airport be enlarged but the airport ideally must be linked to the motorway and rail network.
The issue is how many passengers could the present LBA site move (maximum) and is it worth spending x amount of money to get to this capped amount of passengers?