How can LBA expand ?

[gonnow air]

Let us imagine for a minute that the big bosses at LBA wish to expand the airport to attract new business. How would they do it?

Lets start with the lifeblood of any airport, the runway.
How long does it need to be for a fully laden A330 or B767 to go transatlantic and is there enough room to hold this massive landfill site? Would it be viable to extend towards the chevin knowing that you can only use 14 for long haul?

Now lets look at the terminal.
Nobody can keep throwing good money at the random group of extensions that is currently calling itself the terminal. A new start is the only option.
The best place to build a terminal is obviously adjacent to your biggest stands and you need to be able to board and disembark from all stands without incuring the wrath of the Department of Transport by letting inbound and outbound pax mix.
So you erect a 3 storey building from stand 9 to the east end and either have airbridges on all stands or get just the walkway over the road with a set of stairs, like stand 7 would look without the actual airbridge portion. The ground floor (level with the apron) would house the arrivals hall, check in desks and any other passenger related offices. The first floor would be a large departure hall with holding lounges at each gate and the basement (on the level of the long stay car park) would be the ideal place for a baggage hall, access to which would be either around the end of the building or by a ramp that comes up onto the apron, therefore not interfering with the flow of passengers in any way.
Of course with the loss of so much car parking a multi storey would have to be built where the shortstay car park is and it would have to be connected to the terminal by an aerial walkway so that people did not have to run the gauntlet with the traffic.

Of course this whole subject is only academic as we all know that there is only one thing going to happen, the management will bury their heads in the sand and prey that the bad aircraft will just go away!!
Anyone got any other ideas for expansion ( and i don't means moving LBA to Doncaster)

[nibor]

Say this miracle comes true, the runway is extended and a real terminal built there is still the problem of parking the extra aircraft that would be required to carry all the extra passengers or freight that would be attracted. The only option there would be closing 09/27 and pouring a lot of concrete. Even then the airport would never buy the busses to service these remote stands.
But at least we can all dream.

[MerchantVenturer]

I believe that LBA is jointly owned by five local authorities through a company set up for the purpose of owning and running the airport.

If that is so would not there be problems in raising the amount of cash that would be required for the massive amelioration scheme envisaged in the opening post to this thread? I thought that local authorities were restricted in the amount of money they could borrow, even in the guise of an airport company.

I remember in the mid 90s when Bristol Airport was considering a new terminal building it was accepted that the then owners, the City Council, would never be allowed to obtain the amount of funding that would be required. They therefore sold 51% of the airport to First Group plc and later sold their share altogether. Today the airport is owned by the Australian Macquarie Bank and Cintra, a subsidiary of the Spanish Ferrovial company.

£40 million has been spent on the new terminal (now three years old), new control tower and other improvements. Without this injection of money from private owners the airport could never have made the dramatic leap forward of recent years - 3.5 million pax last year and up to 4 million in the present year.

[682ft AMSL]

Let's turn the question around. If the airport did stick in a 300m extension and build a state of the art terminal, what airlines do you *realistically* think would begin services that otherwise wouldn't. Would the revenue from these additional services justify the significant investment?

Look more closely at the opportunities and threats to LBA's potential for future expansion and it is fairly obvious that the biggest opportunity is for growth in short-haul low-cost, scheduled and inclusive tour services. Jet2 are around for the low-cost side of things but the biggest barrier to fulfilling the potential in the other areas is not apron, runway or terminal constraints but the simple fact that most of the airlines and tour operators who could offer these services already do so from Manchester. In a low margin business, filling the maximum number of seats at the highest yield and lowest seat cost is pretty fundamental. If airlines think that flying Yorkshire passengers from a consolidated Manchester base is more profitable than operating duplicate services from LBA (or Doncaster or Humberside for that matter) then no amount of additional apron space, runway length or terminal capacity will change these sums. That's the harsh reality that has faced every LBA maangement team since about 1984 when the failure of the local councils to allow H24 operations effectively tied one hand behind their back and allowed Manchester to steal a march.

To answer your original question then 'how can LBA expand' - the management need to find a way of offering tour operators like JMC, First Choice, etc a way of switching some capacity out of Manchester into Leeds in a way which is value-adding for the tour-operators concerned. Ditto, the likes of Air France, Lufthansa, SAS etc for services to their main European hubs. LBA's ultimate goal has to be a based aircraft (operating a full programme) from each of the main tour operators, frequent links to LHR, CDG, AMS, FRA and CPH with airlines that offer genuine inter-lining capability and low-cost for just about everything else. In today's terms, this would give you a throughput of about 3m - 3.5m pax.

Yes there would need to be infrastructural improvements to the terminal and apron but this in itself would not bring in the airlines. This makes the financial considerations around how terminal capacity should be expanded, somewhat tricky. The capacity needs to be in place if the airlines can be persuaded to bring services in, but building something on the assumption that it would prove a magnet to airlines is dangerous for the reasons explained above. The danger of a white elephant is real For now, piecemeal extensions to the terminal and ad-hoc overnight parking arrangements on the apron look fine for what is planned for summer 2004.

682

[Frankfurt_Cowboy]

682, you want to be careful posting carefully considered, commercially reasoned opinions like that. You could hurt somebody. Have you not seen "Field of dreams" or "Phoenix Nights"? Build it and they shall come!!!!
Let's stick to pie in the sky fantasy wishlists on here shall we? Anyway I'll redress the balance by saying that I've heard that Gulf Traveller are looking to operate a daily feeder service in to their south asian network. That is all.

[LBAir]

The only reason LBA has not been able to attract major airline investment, is the fact that, firstly the runway is too short. Secondly its terminal, a 1960 building with ineffective add-ons.

The runway 32/14, can handle the largest aircraft at present, however this is with reduced payloads; ie. full load of PAX half load of fuel. The DFT has already said the airport is capable of extending its runway to the southeast (Horsforth end) by the previously quoted 300m. This within the current airport boundry.
Wiilst this alone would allow transatlantic flights and flights to the Middle east possible with full payloads, it would be advisable to extend at the northwest end by 300m to improve safety margins for aircraft landing on 32 and departing on14.

As for the terninal, well, frankly, its seen its days. The previously mentioned Bristol terminal, whilst, yes its nice and new and works great, however given the rate of growth in aviation, Bristol managers too have fallen into the HEAD IN SAND catogory. Not planning far enough ahead. Leeds needs major investment, maybe a company like PEEL HOLDINGS would be able to provide the sort of resorses required. I would expect the money required, realistically would run into HUNDREDS of millions, given the cost of Manchesters terminal 2. There is the room to provide this between stand 9 and 17. The cross runway is certain to go. New taxiways, multi-story carparking and road improvements a must.

I think LBA has the potential and could carry upto 8 million PAX

Will the managers have the bottle??

[nibor]

I think everyone will agree that the only way to raise the money required for a worthwhile expansion programme is by dipping into the private sector, which is unlikely to happen while councils own all the shares.

As for expansion, it is not a case of 'build it and they will come'. THEY are already here, Leeds is one of the biggest cities in the country and Bradford is hardly a small suburb either. Which is bigger Manchester or Leeds ? My guess is Leeds. Can anyone confirm?

While 682 is right about the strategy required by the management to attract tour operators i do not agree with the statement that airlines will not operate out of LBA because they already fly from MAN. This attutude does not make financial sence at all. Lets say that both BA and AZ fly 5 times a day MAN-FCO, each using 50 seater jets. Other things being even they would get half the passengers each. If 150 of these come from the LBA area what makes more sense, Flying all 150 LBA passengers on a 3 times daily service from LBA and fighing it out on the other 2 sectors at MAN or just sitting back and accepting that the only way to increase the number of bums on seats is to cut prices.
Airlines follow the passengers, why else start new routes or increase capacity?
Although the demand may be high around LBA the infrastructure is not there to provide for the demand.
People fly from MAN because that is where the flights are.
Flights are from MAN because it has the facilities to handle them.
If both the demand and facilities are at LBA where would you operate from?

[MerchantVenturer]

nibor

Leeds has a larger population than the city of Manchester but nowadays we need to think in terms of conurbations. Thus Greater Manchester is larger than the Leeds/Bradford conurbation, and catchment areas of course extend even further.

LBAir

The BRS terminal was designed to be extended and will be.
The Bristol conurbation is probably less than half the size of the Leeds/Bradford conurbation, so on that basis alone LBA should be carrying more pax than BRS.

But of course there are many other considerations and the BRS management will say that having a new terminal was a major plank in their successfully attracting more airlines and routes.

[MD11FAN]

I can't see LBA services expanding significantly due to several reasons:

1.Infrastructure; I have used the airport 4/5 times and the main problem imo is not the terminal but the roads to the airport. Manchester has direct motorway access, whereas Leeds has no direct link even to the A1. This restricts the catchment area; people don't mind travelling longer distances when the roads are a high standard.

2.Competition; Manchester, Teeside, Humberside and most importantly Doncaster/Finningley.

[Mouser]

MD11FAN, should we add Liverpool to that competition list aswell.

[qwerty2]

Perhaps we should also mention LBA's dismal weather record ; low cloud , poor vis and perpetual crosswinds.
Unless they think seriously about Low Vis operations it will always be a problematic destination.

[HOODED]

Whilst I agree with most of the points above regarding the problems to expansion, lets not forget in the last year or so LBA has been one of the fastest growing UK airports in terms of passenger growth. Whilst most of this can be put down to Jet2/Planetair lets not forget that this has been achieved despite the poor road links, probably because of the huge population within the immediate local area. As for crosswinds not much you can do here but most modern ac can accept a fairly strong component. As for the vis problem, LBA was one of the first UK regional airports to get a CAT3 ILS. Whilst CAT3 ops are limited when there is an easterly component this is being looked at with a possibility of 14 being upgrraded to CAT2, the other option is of course a further runway extension at either end allowing a greater tailwind component to be acceptable. Unfortunately when the runway was extended in the 80's the CAA enforced the thresholds at both ends to be displaced meaning that despite the runway being 2250m the LDAs on 14/32 were 1802/1916m. The 14 displacement was due to high ground on approach but 32 has no such problems and here lies the CAT3 problem for larger ac.As for Doncaster Idoubt it will affect LBA too much, HUY need to worry more on that score!

[LBAir]

Page 209 REF 7.16.2 DFT AIRPORT DEVELOPMENT

[Of the regions currently operational airports, the development of Leeds Bradford offers perhaps the greatest scope for developing new services within the region.]

As for Doncaster, well its just as quick for the people of West Yorkshire to travel to Manchester, so why bother using Doncaster, when the flights already opperate from Manchester.

The fact is, people just don't want to travel to airports. If the same services are available from Leeds, I am sure they would be utillized.

Yes, Leeds' weather record is not the best in the world, but new technology using GPS, I believe is already been used for BLIND landings in the US. It will be possible for all aircraft to land or take-off on any runway, without ILS GLIDE fluctuations, such as those seen on the 14 end. This, in the not too distant future.

I understand that the airport is looking into improving road/rail links to the airport, I understand the airport is looking at the possibility of a road link to the A65/A6120 Outer Ring Road.

Page 49 REF 2.6.7 DFT AIRPORT DEVELOPMENT , Catchment

[Although Leeds Bradford and Shefield airports have smaller one-hour drive time catchment populations than Manchester and Liverpool, their relatively central location means that their 2-hour drive time catchments are actually similar to those for Manchester and Liverpool John Lennon or ever bigger.]

Leeds Bradfords' best asset has got to be the fact that Leeds is the fastest growing city in the country. Any airline looking at expansion, would be mad not to take this into consideration. Airlines such as JET2 have already capitalized on this. I expect, and am certain, that they wont be the last.

LBA its upto you!!!

[Northern Highflyer]

Doncaster will be far easier and quicker to get to than LBA for those who live to the South of Leeds. I can even get to HUY in around the same time as I can get to LBA, even though they are more than twice as far away. Manchester, and even East Midlands have much better access from certain parts of West Yorkshire due to the motorway links. Negotiating the ring road is, quite frankly, a nightmare, and puts me off using LBA, even though I consider it my local airport.

I think LBA will lose out to Doncaster when it opens, but it will take time, and they already have a substantial size runway in place.

The weather is another issue. Even the YAA is considering relocation, but easier road access would be the best thing for LBA.

[Helen49]

LBA is ill thought out from the start. Badly sited. Wrong runway alignment. Extremely poor weather record. Terminal in the wrong place. No level ground. The worst road access of any UK airport and little hope of any significant improvement from the south and west [the major part of the catchment area]. Little realistic chance of a rail link. Man, Huy, Lpl, Mme and soon Fin offering more reliable alternatives. Politicians who took 20yrs to get a runway extension....need I say more!

[MerchantVenturer]

"The worst road access of any UK airport "

Helen49,

LBA must be bad in this respect if it is worse than BRS which is also the 'wrong' side of the city it serves, as well as having a dreadful weather record at times.

But it copes, it has to.

[KAT TOO]

The biggest threat to LBA is Jet2/Doncaster, if the first moves to the second, then there (would) be a lot of red faces and empty buildings, which is why they'll put a `tent` up for next year and see how it goes and as a local tax payer i think that is a sound plan. Yes its not brave, but follow whats going on at the enquiry into the cost overshoot at Scotlands toy town parliment Holyrod or what ever its called, projected cost £40m current cost £410m and it ain't finished yet,major capital investments and local councils nearly always end in tears!!

All the walls at LBA are stuck in place with velcro, outside they are digging up kerbs and tarmac that have hardly set since they were laid last year.

Time to bring in a private companyand its cash to sort it out, the work at the South side shows what can be done!

A longer runway would help everyone, including the people who object about noise as most aircraft could do `flex` performabce if it were 300m longer.

I don't expect to see LBA push the boat out any time soon!

[ILS 119.5]

LBA will only expand as quick as the Airlines dictate. It will not expand to accommodate future long haul or other operations. As I said in my previous comments they do not have foresight. You cannot expect a company which is run by accountants to be able to have the vision to run an airport for the future. Imagine the investment to expand:- 1. Longer runway. 2. Ground Movement Radar. 3. New Tower & Equipment. 4. More Controllers (50K each per annum is a lot of money). 5. Bigger terminal. 6. More managers. 7. More operations staff (which they will have to get anyway due to JET2). 8. ILS approved to CAT3 on 14 (which will never happen). 9. More staff!! All this is a massive investment and at the moment I would not think that the LBA management nor the councils would invest. However, if LBA was sold off to a larger company with a bit of "speculate to accumalate" attitude then things may be different. This may make you all think again about a public service industry being owned by a few local councils who have not got the ability to run themselves let alone an airport. Maybe now is the time to sell LBA to a company who can run a successfull business and who have the foresight to expand for the people of Yorkshire and maybe even make a few bob for themselves.

For Helen49
I find that the country roads are a very pleasant access to LBA, not crowded and free from idiots except the odd farmer with his tractor, far better than the M25/M4 etc.
LBA has a record of bad weather but not many flights are lost due to this. Most of the a/c are CAT3 equipped and most of the pilots can land with a 30kt crosswind. On rare occasions there are winds exceeding the a/c limits but few divert, same for the fog. The majority of the based crews are highly skilled, and can operate from LBA in the extreme weather conditions that occur. The only thing that I can say to the non LBA based crews is that the LBA based crew know that the colour of adrenalin is brown!

[Frankfurt_Cowboy]

Hmmmm. yes. Come to think about it Dart Group do have exceptionally strong links with the Donny area and the whole A1 corridor through their Fowler Welch operation. They've been keen to link the two already with their 45ft boxes painted up in Jet2 livery running up from East Anglia to Tesco's, Morrisons , Asda and Sainsburys logistics centres in West Yorkshire and Manchester.
And as for the "country road" approach to LBA, well I can only assume that you've got lost and have ended up in Cookridge, Bramhope of Menston as I'm sure you'll find that the main Bradford/Leeds to Harrogate Road is refreshingly short of tractors.
Let's be honest, LBA knows it's place, it's a niche airport, at the moment that niche is expanding and fair play to them, but the best they can hope for really is that Jet2 will continue to expand and that they'll get decent connections to the hubs of the major airline alliances to allow worldwide connections. Couple this with an adequate domestic services and it'll serve the many local business travellers well. The West Yorkshire package holiday market will be happy to continue to fly from LBA if they can but will probably be happier to pocket the £30-£40 each that they'll save by making the trek across the pennines to go on their jollies.
Horses for courses, and LBA is certainly more Wetherby than Ascot.

[qwerty2]

Sorry ILS but you're wrong there are frequent bad wx diversions to NV and CC , it is an unreliable desination.
Helen49 is quite right , the airport is a legacy project built in the wrong place ,on top of a hill , and with no usable runway in the direction of the prevailing wind. Long term it's future is resticted.
GPS approaches are unlikely for decades.

Open Finningley ( long runway , flat ground ) with a few Portacabins and you've lost Ryanair and other low cost carriers.

[KAT TOO]

Querty "lots off diversion"

No not really, sure compared with Manchester and PIK but if or more to the point when they get round to another 300m and cat2 on R14, then i don't think it would be any worse than EDI, which had a few this week. Most operators are at least Cat 2 these days and that helps a lot.

Sure there is limited scope to delvelope it in the way Manch has grown, but no one expects that.Bristol is on a foggy hill and Cork is wet anf foggy most the year but they have all seen growth the last couple of years. i think Leeds could go to 3.5m pax in the next couple years, until Donny opens any way, then most the charter stuff might clear off down there, time will tell, in the mean time i wish Leeds well.

[HOODED]

And lets not forget Luton or should that be London Luton also on top of a hill and suffers from low cloud but still does very well. It has a shorter runway than LBA too although it's all available as it hasn't been CAA'd by an enforced threshold move during runway extension approval. It is also more into wind and has the London cathment area. By my mind despite all LBA's problems it should be on a par with Newcastle/Bristol in terms of movements and passenger throughput. I just hope it continues to grow towards it's potential, just as I hope all UK airports do. There'll be more jobs for us all then hopefully!

[KAT TOO]

Hooded

Agreed

[chrisleeds2003]

Some interesting posts... while I can't see the road links improving much, I think a rail link could seriously be considered. The Leeds - Harrogate line runs within a mile of the terminal building, with not a whole lot in between them. A branch line to the airport could make LBA something it never has been - easy to get to. It'd take less than 20 mins from central Leeds. Extending the runway at the 14 end would be an unviable option, I think, because you'd have to build another tunnel etc. for the road.

[Frankfurt_Cowboy]

I see that they've announced that LBA will be getting an on-site Trevelodge. From the description given it would appear to be located in or near the current Exec Club car park.

[nibor]

I believe that the new hotel will be situated on the far side of whitehouse lane, opposite the car park. At about 75m from the terminal it will be a lot closer that the 'Holiday Inn Leeds/Bradford Airport' which must be about 3 miles away and is the only Hotel currently claiming to be at the airport.

However i do have my doubts about this project. A few years ago i was told by the LBA marketing representative, who was at the Great Yorkshire Show, that the airport hotel would be completed before the new departure lounge was opened!!!
Who was telling porky pies? There has been a new arrivals and catering facility built since then and still no hotel.


And now for something completely different.
The local rag this week has run an article which is basically about what Jet2 are doing to reduce the noise problem for local residents.

"Jet2 were the miscreants for flying off course but they have assured us that with their new electronic tracking devices the problem has been solved" said a local resident.
Is this new electronic tracking device called radar?

"They have changed their flightpath and altered pilot protocol so planes ascend more quickly" said another resident.
Unless the new protocol involves changing the laws of phyics with regard to gravity, higher climb rate equals more power equals more noise and if i am not mistaken, more complaints from the folk of Yeadon.
I do love reading the weekly aticles about LBA, they are so amusing.

[Frankfurt_Cowboy]

There's the Travel Inn at the Yeadon Stoops just down the road. opposite two of the best chippys I know.

[nibor]

Good point.
I spend so much time there with a beer in my hand that i forgot they have beds also.
Do they advertise themselves as Yeadon Stoops Leeds/Bradford Airport or is it just Yeadon?

[Frankfurt_Cowboy]

If you put LBA in to the location search on the website it comes up with that as a Travel Inn site. That bit better than a Travelodge, in my opinion.

[ILS 119.5]

Look at the figures, not many diversions due weather as a percentage. The Hotel! Is this the same one they were going to build a few years ago? Whenever! The Noise Problem! All a/c must follow the SIDS, end of story.
To all the local residents, all aircraft will follow the same routing until ICAO or the CAA decide otherwise.

[KAT TOO]

At least Sandy faced the Menston mob!
If i was in his shoes i would have gone armed with a photo of what a 733 looks like (from underneath) and the same for Ryanairs bags of ****e.If the airport managers had balls they would tell ryanair to take their crappy aircraft and fly them in Ireland and when MOL threatens to take his bat and ball home, tell him to do just that and make sure his noisey smokey 732 go with him, meanwhile get Jet2 to Dublin 4 times a day.Whilst we are on noise i'd tell Eastern that if they won't pay for push backs then they can push off as well, powering back off stand is a health and safety issue and it won't be long before the hard working ground crews start sueing the airport for noise damage, that sort noise level should have been banned with mill loomsGrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

[682ft AMSL]

A few points to clear up:

nibor - the hotel project a few years ago was the plan by the McDonald Hotels Group to build a fairly substantial hotel in much the same area as the current project. They decided against it in the end.

There have been other plans before that, dating back to 1990 I believe, so I doubt you were being lied to. The difference this time is that the airport themselves are funding the build project and will own the building. They will effectively lease it out to a hotel operator.


A few people have mentioned wx diversions. The data for the last few years is as follows (numbers in brackets are for Bristol)

1999: 55 (185)
2000: 132 (183)
2001: 103 (161)
2002: 83 (120)

With 10 months gone in 2003, LBA has accumulated around 30.

Bristol of course has more ATMs and the true measure is not the absolute number but the number relative to the number of movements. I suspect this puts them about even.

Its also worth pointing out that of the LBA numbers, the vast majority are related to low cloud base and fog as opposed to x-wind limits. X-winds may lead to a few interesting approaches for the crew and sore throats for ATC with the constant wind-checks, but it's not that big a deal.

Finally, a few points about Finningley. Firstly lets remember that Peel Holdings themselves are positioning Finningley as a regional airport for South Yorks and North Notts and are forecasting a throughput of 2 million passengers by 2015, i.e. it will be the same size as LBA is now, 10 years after it opens.

Secondly, Peel presented the following information to the public enquiry which demonstrated where people form South Yorks currently fly from.

MAN 60%
EMA 15%
BHX 6%
LBA 5%
HUY 2%

Various London 12%

With estimates of the number of air passengers generated from the Yorkshire region ranging from 6m-8m, it seems pretty clear that whilst neither LBA nor Finningley is in the right place to handle all of this traffic, there is room for both to co-exist.

The issue for both, as I mentioned earlier in the context of LBA, is how to win back traffic from MAN. If people think Peel / Finningley will be any better than LBA has been to date, its worth noting that despite the tremendous transformation that Peel have done at LPL, success has been largely the result of Easyjet. In terms of winning business back from MAN, Peel at Liverpool have been no more successful than LBA has been, arguably less so.

682

[KAT TOO]

682FT

An interesting post, what do you think the effect of upgrading the 14 approach to CAT2 would be? in respect of the fog/low cloud diversions. Crosswind by their nature tend to blow through fairly quickly and in any event once the cold front goes through and its 290 ish then 50knts is still well in most aircraft 30-35 crosswind limit, an interesting approach non the less !!:ooh:

[682ft AMSL]

The effect of CAT2 on 14 would be significant as a peculiarity of the airport is that the RVR at the 14 touchdown point tends to higher and improves more quickly than the 32 end. And so often when the low-cloud and drizzle is blowing in from the south, the 32 end is below CAT2 limits and the 14 end is between 300m - 400m. Why this is, I've no idea but the ability to land in 300m on 14 would comfortably take about 50 or so diversions out of the annual total.

Sadly I am led to believe its a no go. The current 3.5 degree glide is unsuitable for CAT2 ops and proposals to lower it to something around the 3.1 - 3.2 mark are unacceptable to the CAA on the basis of insufficient clearance over the high ground to the North.

The best that can be hoped for is to 'top and tail' the runway at both ends to try and improve the CAT3 performance on the 32 end, e.g. sort out the 32 undershoot (possibly in connection with a new turning loop) and tarmac over the 100m grass overrun at the 32 stop-end. Both might eek out enough additional LDA to allow greater use of CAT3 than is seen at the minute. Although I'm sceptical that even this is feasible on the basis that the significant amount of earth excavated from the multiflight development was dumped in the hollow behind taxiway 'D' and not into the 32 undershoot

Of course 80 odd diversions each year equates to about 2 days worth of business. The airport, when deciding where to invest in the airport infrastructure, may well take the view that improving the airport for the other 363 days a year is more worthwhile.

682

[KAT TOO]

The Flying Scotsman

The noise abatement procedure at Leeds (R32) pre dates Jet2 ops, so whats changed? clearly you have managed to "pour oil" on the troubled Menston waters, so have you changed your ops and if so how? if you are now sticking to the noise abatement procedure,then what people are saying is that either you weren't flying the SID's correctly before or that your FMS kit wasn't?

Any way i don't find your kit that noisey, compared to Ryanair that shakes the whole of wharfdale

[nibor]

The Flying Scotsman

The two statements that I quoted are from a newspaper article. I used them to show how the press seem to get things a little wrong when they interview the general public.
I was not having a go at you airline in any way, I actually quite like the way Jet2 have jumped in to LBA and are starting to mix it with the big boys.

However I did assume that every airline, especially based ones, would follow the noise preferential routing as a standard practice.
If this was not previously the case with yourselves then I would have expected an apology to the locals would have been in order.

The question still remains, how can an aircraft get more lift without increasing thrust, reducing weight or reducing drag?
It can'not. This was the point of the statement.

As with KAT TOO I do not class Jet2 as causing a noise problem.

[gonnow air]

The reason that I started this topic was to find out what other people thought could be done to improve LBA.

I have enjoyed reading the replies and there have been well reasoned arguments from both sides.
I hoped that there could be an indepth discussion without people resorting to mud throwing or insults.
I was mistaken.

I had a giggle at the post from 'nibor' and took it in the context it was clearly written in.

The Flying Scotsman

You seem to have missed the point slightly. 'nibor' said that there would be more complaints from the residents of YEADON not MENSTON.
Yeadon is the bit right next to 32 and along the climb out.
Menston is the bit 3 miles away that you trying to reduce the noise impact at.

Will a steeper climb cause more noise for Yeadon while reducing it for Menston?

[KAT TOO]

The Flying Scotsman

Once again thanks for your prompt reply. The `mean track` problem is quite common and it doesn't much matter enroute, but as you say on the POL1W (and NELSA/WAL) westerly SIDs it does.One other question whilst your here/ill what do you use as an acceleration Altitude.

Get well soon

cheers