You make some very good points - I don't it's that Yorkshire people don't want an efficient airport - I think it is that they don't care. They have grown up with LBA's offering and MAN over the hill and just come to accept that's the way it is.
And apart from yourself are quite happy with that option.
They are not aviation experts and therefore do not realise LBA is totally inadequate.
No, they perceive it to be perfectly adequate to their needs.
People in Yorkshire will only realise what they and this county has been missing when a suitable airport is provided.
They already have perfectly suitable airports available and are happy with it, you just don't like the idea that the larger airport is in Manchester.
Another issue is that almost half Yorkshires population live in West Yorkshire, not far from LBA, so they wont be asking for another airport if they think it will be further away - that's why CF's location is critically important to the project working.
there is no political will for this project, their is no clamour for this airport, there is no need for this airport and that is why no one is asking for it.
Those politicians who thought finningley would be an airport for the whole of Yorkshire should have stuck to politics. The whole project revolves around two poorly placed low potential airports becoming one ideally placed airport with huge potential.
But for your project to get off the ground you need these ill informed politicians and they won't get their fingers burnt a second time you are right on that. So this argument is now predicated on closing Yeadon and Finningley, not a snowballs chance of that happening so you would have three airports fighting for the same traffic and you know what Yeadon would win. I work in logistics so I don't profess to be an avaiation expert merely I work in an avaiation related industry and have worked at LHR, LBA and MAN so I will bow to your more expert knowledge if you indeed are in the aviation industry.
Do you live in Halifax? Even from Halifax, the far west of region, getting to CF (with an A road from the A1 in time) would be so much quicker and easier than Yeadon or MAN and there wouldn't be the need to go over the top of the pennines (important in winter).
Yes I live in Halifax and over the last few years have flown from LBA, MAN, LPL and EMA whichever was the most suitable to my needs at the time. I had many years driving Halifax to Yeadon so I know the difficulties. I also drive regularly to MAN and I think you are over egging the difficulties, apart from a few occasions I cannot see CF being advantageous, you presume everyone will drive but I tend to use the train to MAN.
Newcastle is a purely North Eastern airport and pulls very few passengers from Yorkshire. Most people heading to DXB / EWR will go to MAN because of the train and motorway connection. If flights to New York / Dubai were started from CF they would be able to pull from the North East though. CF could pull passengers from all points of the compass to add to the passengers from Yorkshire and the Humber just like MAN does. Leeds is at the crossroads of the urban North. There are so many political obstacles to overcome for CF to be a success but if they were overcome CF would be a money making success for Yorkshire for years to come in exactly the same way MAN is now.
As has been asked are you sure NCL doesn't pull pax from the North of the region, I am no expert in Airline Yields but would EK for example want to fly from NCL, MAN and CF I am not convinced more likely they have the North covered as they are.