Leeds / Bradford Airport Forum | Monarch A330-200 @LBA

It was nice to see this large aircraft at Leeds, she was doing a troop run from Leeds to Germany.did anyone on here see it.....

Beautiful capture. She looks stunning in that picture.

Just out of interest, there was another A330 in at LBA yesterday, this time a Thomas Cook aircraft. Unlike the Monarch aircraft (above) which was operating only to Germany, this one was flying across to Bridgetown Barbados.

Despite a crosswind at take off, she flew non stop from LBA to Bridgetown to connect with a cruise ship, carrying 332 pasengers. I would imagine that the return will be operated by another A330 in 2 weeks time.

Will be interesting to see if the return actually makes it into LBA. I remember last year it diverted to Manchester due to the 'weather', despite not even attempting an approach (or was it a TOM 763 which did this?)

Sam

It was a TOM 767-300. This is (sadly) not uncommon with TOM, particularly where the crew is based at MAN and they want to go home. Why bother flying to LBA and attempting a landing in 'testing' conditions when you can just fly to your home base and let the weary passengers wait for a fleet of coaches to bus them back to their chosen destination?

I have seen this happen time and again, and always with TOM and its predecessor, Britannia, sometimes with nothing more than a slight breeze on a clear day, and the excuse given being 'operational reasons'.

Much cheaper to 'divert' into a their hub and coach a plane full of pax a few miles up the road to LBA

Yeh, disgusting!

The cross wind at LBA always makes for a lively landing and the runway is much too short for a comfortable roll-out with a large aircraft.Slamming it down and then having to throw out everything to stop is not the best way to endear passengers after a restful cruise. At least MAN has proper length runways pointing in the right direction.

Maybe it does - it has a lot more room to fit them in, luckily for MAN. Nevertheless it is completely wrong to sell passengers a flight from LBA, charge additional supplements, and then land them back at MAN simply for the convenience of the crew. If the weather at LBA is an issue, then fine, but very often every other flight lands without a problem. 767's are perfectly capable of landing and stopping comfortably on the runway at LBA and plenty of the 'diverts' in the past have been without even an approach and with the weather well within the limits for the aircraft.

Dave59 - LBA may have cross winds but these are not always present and often haven't been there at all when TOM flights have diverted to MAN. It has been entirely down to saving time and money and sod the passengers.

White Heather: I couldnt have said it any better then that, you are correct about the TOM crews.....i could quite understand there wish to fly back to Man on a divert if they first attempted to land at Leeds...but as you have already stated they dont seem interested, all they want to do is head back to base, they have no concideration for the pax's who have paid very good money to fly to and from the airport of their choice.............I have known of other operators who have done more than one approach, plus i have heard others who remain in a holding pattern until they think that a landing is manageable......I bet things would very different if TOM had a base at LBA.

Also Manchester airport runway only points in the right direction until they have cross-winds...thats when Leeds Bradford Airport Runway is facing in the correct direction for any possible diverts in from Man....as for runway lenght, well that is another story, maybe Bridgepoint and the council will come up with an extension program at some point in the future........Lets remember LBA is not trying to compete with MAN, it is just trying to establish itself as the best regional airport for Yorkshire, and trying to recover some of the losses to Man that Leeds could serve.......

I've had 2 terrible landings at MAN, one was quite scary actually, but i flew into LBA last week and it was a perfect landing... as for the runway extension, i dont think anything major can be done at LBA, maybe a fw hundered feet or something, i think what LBA could benefit most from is the parallel taxiways if bigger aircraft are to be in play for the future, just to make it more comfortable for pilots and the aircraft...

just a thought

MAN will generally have much less crosswind than LBA due to the runways being correctly aligned to the prevailing wind. TOM have the perfect excuse to 'divert' particularly with a large a/c like the 330. If they divert for other reasons the pax should get refunds. BA used the shuttle/LHR if there was the slightest problem with the MAN-JFK flight and it stinks.

TOM have been watching this:


...And a discussion on LBA here:
http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-353581.html

LBA is at 691ft too

Why does LBA get all this flac, people talk about LBA as if it is the only airport in the country who has a cross wind problem, its runway is to short and it is placed in the wrong place and at the wrong elevation......

Name a single airport that has never had a problem, i bet you cant!!! as non of them are perfect or infallible

There should be a valid reason for a divert as otherwise a holiday company could leave themselves open to claims that the tours sold were not as per the ticket. A change of airport is a material change to the contract so unless it's covered by a genuine operational problem (such as out of limits crosswinds) then it should not really happen.

There is also the other issue that what you experience on the ground may not be the same as a thousand feet up or more on the approach. Windshear is a definite problem. I've seen quite a few flights on the SBS peel off and divert to MAN or EMA and they are airlines like jet2 who are LBA based. They often turn well before they drop out of my coverage so they must be diverting due to information received by the crew from previous aircraft.

it's just not a clear issue. As non-pilots we can't second guess those crews. LBA is a tough approach due to alignment and the terrain around it, and it's not always something we can see or experience on the ground.

Maybe LBA should be applying to the EU for funding in their regional development schemes to realign and extend the runway. Airports like Funchal bagged a ton of cash to do their project which is a piered extension.

Yes there are occasional wind shear problems, but for wind shear it usually has to be windy. I have seen TOM flights divert to MAN on perfectly calm days where every other flight has landed with no problem including similar aircraft types. Nobody is arguing that safety is paramount, and I think it is true that the location of the LBA runway just over the top of a hill does lead to some rather iffy conditions when there is a serious cross wind. But the issue is not weather related. TOM don't bother to even fly over here to see what the weather is like half the time, and long before the arrival time it is known that they are 'diverting' to MAN for 'operational reasons', which can be an excuse for anything.

As for the bad press at LBA - one particular ex TOM pilot on one particular forum has started a lot of that and he was one of the worst for diverting whatever the weather. He was more windy that the weather!

Perhaps also the MAN people are getting slightly worried about LBA? After all, we have nicked Ryanair from them (although they might claim not to care but really they do!) and we have also nicked a good deal of their PIA traffic to Islamabad and made a damned good go of it, with flights leaving fully laden regularly. And of course Jet2 is an LBA based airline that operates more routes from LBA than MAN.

OK, we are miles behind MAN and that will always be the case, but I can't help smiling at how so many MAN supporters take delight in having a go at LBA. Perhaps we shouldn't be suprised though as they have a go at us with regard to football, cricket etc. Perhaps a legacy of the war of the Roses??

LBA has its niche. Just like Stansted Gatwick and Luton can exist in their niches around the M25.

As for Ryanair LBA is welcome to them. They were more trouble than they were worth trying to drive charges down below break-even money for Manchester. It would have caused a knock-on effect with other carriers demanding renegotiation. For low fares then LBA will not pick up any of the Ryanair traffic, it will all go to Liverpool. If anything FR will damage Jet2 and possibly generate some new business from over there

Spinning it as something that is a gain for LBA might just come back to bite you. Jet2 is your home team airline and Ryanair can do them huge damage, as LS have been able to command decent fares on their operations out of Leeds. Ryanair sum up the term capricious, look at their current little wheeze of abandoning the Oslo airport that they helped build up for another one up the road.

Anyway LBA needs Manchester as we are your principal diversion field. Aircraft approaching LBA with technical issues need long runways and we are the ideal diversion point, open 24 hours with dual runways. Be grateful you have the big cousin living over the hills. Otherwise your diverted locals would end up in Birmingham or Newcastle.

Rubbish, we dont need Manchester for diverts, we have Robinhood airport at Doncaster which has the second longest runway in the North, and it is in Yorkshire!!!!

All too true, and as a quieter airfield and being closer to LBA, i would find it more appealing for LBA diverts... sod MAN

Well it was nice to see our MAN fan brothers taking the bait again.

Whitehatter wrote:
For low fares then LBA will not pick up any of the Ryanair traffic, it will all go to Liverpool'

Sorry, but where do you get this from? Ryanair have already announced 14 new routes from LBA in addition to the 3 they already do. 2 of those are operated alongside Jet2 and it hasn't done any harm because there is sufficient demand for both to operate successfully. If anyone will lose it is MAN/LPL because instead of the overspill passengers heading West, they have more options from LBA.

Ryanair also operate many routes that Jet2 would not be interested in, so for LBA it is a case of Ryanair or nothing on routes such as Malta and Carcasonne.

You are saying that Jet2 will be harmed by competition? They are expanding at MAN and moving into EMA where they will have a lot more competition than they will ever have at LBA. There is no reason at all to believe that Ryanair will 'harm' Jet2, but they will admittedly have to look more carefully at their fare structures. In fact they have already introduced changes since the Ryanair arrival which has benefitted the passengers.

LBA was verging on being dependent upon Jet2 for its passenger numbers and should anything ever happen to them, we would end up rather quiet. Ryanair is our insurance policy. Everyone bangs on about how many airports they have walked away from. That is business! There are many more that they have stuck with and grown from. These do NOT include Manchester. I know MAN has been used to being the big airport of the North that dominates everything, but occasionally you will lose out to competitors. Get over it!!

Do you really think that Bridgepoint Capital would negotiate a deal with Ryanair if in the process they did serious damage to our own based airline? There are a lot of people who would always choose Jet2 over Ryanair, myself included, so neither O'Leary nor LBA management are going to want to waste time and money operating on routes that Jet2 serve which will not stand two airlines. Routes upon which both will operate such as Palma, Malaga, Faro have enough demand for both airlines from LBA.

As for MAN being our main diversion airport - well not really. Jet2 divert more to DSA than they do to MAN (if they can wake them up), BMi divert mainly to DTV, KLM usually go to HUY, and only Flybe appear to use MAN exclusively along with Thomas Cook. It is very much down to the airline and some airlines completely ignore MAN. For example Wizz Air divert to LBA if either LPL or DSA are closed. Is it something that MAN said?

Nice to see you banging on about just the thing you decry elsewhere. You don't seem capable of a reasoned debate so why bother?

Stay in your nice little stunted world.

Going back to the TOM topic, LBA may have fog and wind now and then, but recently a TOM aircraft diverted because of a wet runway! Not like Manchester's would have been any dryer!!!!!!!! TOM = noobs to me!

Danny

Wouldn't want that list of divs in MAN personally. Want stuff coming in on div that do not come in as a rule, rare stuff. The bigger the better! Much prefer the London stuff.

I am an asthtetic spotter and no longer log aircraft -and I prefer wide bodied to single aisle. That's why I am personally not bothered about Leeds Bradford diversions..... nothing new over here basically. I want a diversion to be different, not stuff we see daily. But I am sure that there are MAN spotters, who log, that will disagree with me!

Am failing to understand the bitchy-ness here? Thought we were all intersted in the same thing?? Bit daft really. I live 7mls from MAN and I can see the Pennines from my bedroom window. I come under Cheshire! No Flower wars here. Lets just enjoy our hobby is my vote.

MAN is the primary diversion location for aircraft inbound Leeds with technically problems.

We have 2 runways so if an aircraft is stuck on the runway it doesn't completely close the airport, just adds delays if anything.

Not sure what the RFF cover Robin Hood / Humberside etc have but I know the RFF cover at MAN is level 9 and can be updated to 10 if needed. I doubt Robin Hood or Humberside have sufficient RFF cover for a PIA A310 at short notice for example.

Hence the reason for a runway extension, Leeds needs to be allowed to grow to it maximum potential, we need larger aircraft into LBA to make it more viable and to make long haul more appealing to pax's...

Yeah i know......but a little bit of extra lengh would still be nice,

So we further dilute the numbers on long-haul flights where we could, for example, see 1 777 into MAN 80% full becomes a 50% full 757 for MAN and LBA thereby having 2 routes potentially teetering on the edge of being withdrawn and therefore really helping the Northern economy! Be happy that you are having the right-sized aircraft for the sectors that can support an LBA route; if MAN is having difficulty with it's long-established routes then LBA has zero chance of having a new route by those same airlines.

It's why I want someone to come up with a reason for the lack of AA to ORD from LBA granted that a large whack of passengers come from the wrong side of the Pennines... which something that's been known about for a long rtine
So the number of Wizzair A320s that I've seen at MAN when LPL has been closed due snow or fog are figments of my imagination?

Someone has got that wrong..Manchester has and always will be from the wrong side of the pennines, oh and while i remember..LBA are in very good position to start flights to America in the not to distant future....well within the next decade anyway, they also want to start a Schedule to Canada to...i guess time will tell

Great shot there!

Brings back some happy memories.