Flybe soon to be "Virgin Connect" look to be increasing capacity from Leeds/Bradford next summer 2020 season.

Leeds - Belfast City = Increases from 25x to 32x weekly Dash 8-Q400 - 5x daily Mon-Fri, 3x Sat & 4x Sun

Leeds - Newquay = 2x weekly Dash 8-Q400 - Fri & Sun (Peak summer June to August) Increases to 4x weekly - Mon, Fri, Sat & Sun

Leeds - Southampton = Remains 15x weekly operated by Eastern Airways, BAe Jetstream 41 - 3x daily Mon-Thu, 2x Fri & 1x Sun

Is there any plans for Flybe / Virgin Connect to operate into Virgin's long haul hubs at Heathrow or Gatwick?

Nothing that has been mentioned in public - I'd expect nothing until the third runway is built, unless there's a subsidy involved.

Would anyone else really want to operate a London route from Leeds?
Its done well just to keep hold of the British Airways service to Heathrow after all this time.

Virgin don’t have a long haul hub at LGW, they really don’t.

Ryanair have been making yet more changes to the summer 2020 schedule for LBA.

• 56+ Weekly flights - Was 85+ weekly flights during summer 2019.
• 1+ based Boeing 737-800 aircraft - Drop from 3x based aircraft in summer 2019.
• 14+ Routes = Limoges, Dublin, Pisa, Malta, Gdansk, Krakow, Warsaw-Modlin, Wroclaw, Faro, Alicante, Gerona, Ibiza, Malaga & Palma
• 10+ Routes dropped = Crete-Chania, Corfu, Riga, Vilnius, Bratislava, Fuerteventura, Las Palmas, Arrecife, Murcia-Corvera & Tenerife South

The planned A65-A658 airport link road has been scrapped by Leeds City Council. Though it's still planning to go ahead with the proposed Airport Parkway Rail Station on the Leeds-Harrogate, which is about a mile and a half away from the terminal building and will be linked with shuttle buses.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-50859029

road
 

This will not help , For LBA to grow as they would like. And given the state of a certain rail operator,
In that Area, and it's longer range relation .
They are both Struggling for reliable rolling stock, old and new. ( Plus struggling with time tables and available paths on existing lines ) .

Having just read a rail publication, that stated an order has been placed to lengthen ' new trains' from five cars sets to.six', and to keep stock , and again add more carriages ., In other words , to add this link.would need an extra full pair at least of between six to eight coach sets to make it viable as a method of tempting folk from their cars , ( who wants to stand , crammed like ' sardines '?).

The rail link is great , but to be meeting the ' climate emergency , they will need to have it as an electrified line, which means finding funding to electrify Harrogate from Leeds .
So the question is , until they sort out the mess of the rail franchise system and other infrastructure in the North it's little more than a pipe dream .

But also not everyone will want to pile a tonne of bags, three kids etc etc, onto some clapped out geriatric hand me down train or ' pacer ', when they can go ' door to door', by car. So to cancel.a scheme , that would have bypassed the built up area, through which one had to travel from Leeds city, to LBA.
is madness, as the airport grows, more will use it, less will use the train, and the pollution levels will be unbearable in the communities along the way .

So well done to the climate protest , and Leeds city council for not seeing the bigger picture.

If the neighbouring airports get things sorted there will be no need for expansion.

Which one do you mean - MAN or DSA? MAN already has it's own train station and links to the motorway network, DSA has good road links and aren't there discussions about a station on the East Coast main line?? :ok:

Teesside International Airport is what I mean.

Have a look at the map. The traffic in that corridor is regulated by four key intersections, only one of which would have been partially relieved by the link road. The case just didn't stack up.

I am not opposed to the development of LBIA, neither do I have any loyalty to any other airport, however there are fundamental facts, regarding LBIA which have to be faced.
Being 680 ft above sea level in these latitudes produces weather conditions which are not conducive to flight regularity, unless all aircraft operations are able to perform all weather operations.
A runway which is at right angles to prevailing surface winds is less than ideal and frequently unusable.
The runway gradients, approach gradient [in the 14 direction], some shortish declared distances in both directions [particularly TORA on 32 and LD on 14] far from ideal.
Among the worst surface access in the UK. Nearest motorway/dual carriageway miles away. Limited scope and high costs of any improvement.
Lack of level ground and the consequent expense of all construction projects.
Leeds have rarely been a whole-hearted supporter of the Airport and in fact actively opposed any development of the airport throughout the 1970s.
!Periods of inept ownership and management over the past fifty years.
Of course, during this period Manchester and Doncaster/Sheffield have made huge advances in every respect.
In the light of the above it is sad that such a huge catchment lives right on the doorstep of an airport which has such limited hope of significant further development.
I would love to PROVED wrong!

Agreed, H49. I think some of LBA's historical problems have partly been overcome but the place needs the support of its local council now more than ever. I wonder if the airport would be even more successful today if it was on Bradford's patch ?

BTW, good to hear from you again. Been a while :).

The owners of Leeds/Bradford Airport, AMP Capital have today revealed plans to build a brand new £150 million Terminal Building to be opened by 2023. The existing 1960's terminal building will be knock down once the new building has opened.

https://www.leedsbradfordairport.co....ansforming-lba

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ac89df4aaa.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....16869c1746.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ab1e729c56.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5c5057d7f6.png

They seem to have listened to my previous comment about flattening the airport and starting again. In the presentation one of the flash boards says "we are not getting larger".

Great to finally see investment at LBA, a much needed new terminal building, just needs a parallel taxiway, runway resurfacing and a railway connection.

Just needs new security staff with better attitudes and LBA will be excellent.

Are they still building the extension of the old terminal that they started last April, seems a big waste of money if they already had this new one on the planning board.

Don't think they ever started on the new arrivals building.Certainly no building work last few times I've flew out of there last year.

Unfortunately I have to agree, but would gladly be proven wrong.