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Leeds Bradford International Airport
IATA: LBA – ICAO: EGNM
Summary
Airport type		Public
Owner		Bridgepoint Capital
Operator		Leeds Bradford International Airport Limited
Serves		Leeds/Bradford
Location		Yeadon, Leeds, West Yorkshire
Elevation AMSL		681 ft / 208 m
Coordinates		53°51′57″N 001°39′38″W / 53.86583, -1.66056
Website		www.lbia.co.uk
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
	m	ft
14/32	2,250	7,382	Concrete

Leeds Bradford International Airport (IATA: LBA, ICAO: EGNM) is located between the cities of Leeds and Bradford in West Yorkshire, England. The airport was in public ownership until May 2007, when it was sold for £145.5 million. ^[1]

Leeds Bradford has a CAA Public Use Aerodrome Licence (Number P800) that allows flights for the public transport of passengers or for flying instruction.

Contents 1 History 2 Statistics 3 Transport 4 Current airlines and destinations 5 Future airlines and destinations 6 Incidents and accidents 7 References 8 External links

Leeds and Bradford councils jointly bought a site at Yeadon in 1930^[2], and opened it as Yeadon Aerodrome in 1931, for club flights and training. Scheduled flights began four years later in 1935. The first flights were to Newcastle, Edinburgh, Blackpool and the Isle of Man.

In 1936, No.609 (West Riding) Squadron of the Auxiliary Air Force, RAF formed at Yeadon. Seasonal flights between Yeadon and Isle of Man and Liverpool also started this year. Work began on a terminal building in that year, but progress was halted after only one wing had been built.

Civil aviation ended at Yeadon in 1939 when World War II started; Avro built a new factory nearby which was used to produce military aircraft and many of these flew from Yeadon Aerodrome. Aircraft manufactured included Lancasters, Anson, York and Lincoln. Significant developments were made to the aerodrome; the addition of two runways, taxiways and extra hangarage meant that Yeadon became an important site for military aircraft testing.

Civil flights didn't recommence until 1947; and shortly after this in 1953 Yeadon Aviation Ltd was formed to run the Airport and Aero Club. Two years later Belfast, Jersey, Ostend, Southend, the Isle of Wight and Düsseldorf were added to Yeadon's destination list.

Scheduled flights to London began in 1960, and Dublin was added shortly after.

A new runway was opened in 1965, and the terminal building was destroyed by fire. A replacement terminal was opened by 1968.

In 1976 the first package holiday flight to the Iberian Peninsula flew out of Leeds Bradford.

In 1978 it was decided that with runway extensions the airport's status could be upgraded to a regional airport. Work began in 1982, and was completed by 1984. This included significant extension to the main runway including putting the A658 Bradford to Harrogate road into a tunnel. The airport also underwent significant terminal extensions and redevelopments. The first phase of these developments was opened in 1985.

The first wide-body airliner service to operate from Leeds Bradford was a Britannia Airways Boeing 767 flight to Palma, which began in 1985. It attracted the attention of the local media.

For a period in the 1980s there were transatlantic services from Leeds Bradford Airport operated by Wardair that flew to Toronto Pearson International Airport.

In 1986, Concorde visited Leeds Bradford for the first time with an estimated 60,000 people at the airport to see it land.

The airport became a limited company in 1987, and was shared between the five surrounding boroughs of Leeds (40%), Bradford (40%) and Wakefield, Calderdale and Kirklees (together sharing the remaining 20%).

Although initially the airport had restrictions on its operating hours, these were removed in 1994, meaning that flights could depart from and fly into Leeds Bradford at any time of day or night. ^[3]

Work on the airport terminal has been ongoing since 1996, and the result of this has been significant growth in terminal size and passenger facilities. In 2006 nearly 2.8 million passengers passed through the airport, a 73% increase in just six years and more than twice as many compared with 1997 (1.2 million). Much of the growth in passengers since 2003 has been due to the active promotion by the based Jet2.com low-cost airline of new scheduled routes from the airport.

Since 2000 the airport has been home to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

The original runway, 09/27, closed on 6 October 2005, to be redeveloped as a taxiway and extra apron space.

In 2006 Isle of Man based airline Manx2 re-opened the airport's oldest air route - to the Isle of Man - with a twice daily service on weekdays.

In October 2006 plans to privatise the airport were confirmed when Bradford Council became the last of the five controlling councils (the others being Leeds, Wakefield, Calderdale and Kirklees councils) to agree to sell off the airport to the private sector.

On April 4, 2007 the five controlling councils announced that Bridgepoint Capital had been selected as the preferred bidder. ^[4] On May 3, 2007 Bridgepoint was confirmed as the buyer - the final price being £145.5 million. ^[5]

On May 4, 2007 Bridgepoint Capital acquired the airport from Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Calderdale and Kirklees councils for £145.5 million. The new owners have said they are to implement a £70 million capital expenditure plan, to focus on improving passenger and retail infrastructure. Other aims include more than doubling passenger numbers to 7 million per annum and adding up to 20 new scheduled destinations, both by 2015. ^[6]

Number of Passengers [7] Number of Movements [8] 1997 1,254,853 26,123 1998 1,406,948 25,615 1999 1,462,497 26,185 2000 1,585,039 29,263 2001 1,530,227 28,397 2002 1,530,019 28,566 2003 2,017,649 29,397 2004 2,368,604 31,493 2005 2,609,638 35,949 2006 2,792,686 37,251 Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority [1]

The airport has connections to the local road network and is signposted on a large number of routes in the region. Public transport access is provided by bus services, including:

• 737 service, hourly, to/from Bradford via Shipley, Guiseley and Yeadon,
• MetroConnect 747 service, half-hourly, to/from Bradford via Greengates, Apperley Bridge and Yeadon
• Airlink757 service, half-hourly to/from Leeds and Otley
• Bus2Jet767 service, every 90 minutes, to/from Harrogate
• York Aircoach 120 service. every 75 Minutes, to/from York via Knaresborough, Poppleton

The 737, 747 and 757 are operated by First Leeds, Bradford & coordinated by Metro. The 757 route allows access to the National Rail network via Leeds City railway station and connects with long distance coach services at Leeds City Bus Station. The service to Harrogate is operated by Harrogate & District with support from Yorkshire Forward and North Yorkshire County Council. ^[9] The 120 service to/from York is operated by First York with support from Yorkshire Forward, York City Council, Leeds/Bradford International Airport and low cost airline Jet2.com. ^[10]

Licensed taxis are available from the taxi rank outside the airport terminal building. As part of both the airport and Metro's long-term strategies are plans for the construction of a direct rail link to the airport on a branch from the Harrogate Line, however no firm commitments or timescales have been announced.^{[citation needed]}

Airline	Scheduled Destination(s)
Aer Arann	Cork, Galway
Air Malta	Malta
Air Southwest	Bristol, Newquay
bmi operated by bmi Regional	Brussels, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London-Heathrow
Eastern Airways	Aberdeen, Inverness, Southampton
Flybe	Aberdeen, Belfast City, Bergerac, Exeter, Southampton
Jet2.com	Alicante, Almería, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belfast-International, Chambery, Düsseldorf, Faro, Geneva, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Kraków, Lanzarote, Málaga, Menorca, Murcia, Milan- Bergamo, Nice, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Pisa, Prague, Rome-Fiumicino, Salzburg, Tenerife-South, Valencia, Venice
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines operated by KLM Cityhopper	Amsterdam
Manx2	Isle of Man
Ryanair	Dublin, Shannon

Holiday destinations

Alicante, Acapulco, Arrecife, Antalya, Bridgetown, Bodrum, Chambery, Corfu, Dalaman, Faro, Fuerteventura, Heraklion, Ibiza, Innsbruck, Jersey, Larnaca, Las Palmas, Malta, Malaga, New Orleans, Palma de Mallorca, Reus, Rhodes, Tenerife-South, Varna and Zakynthos. These routes are operated by airlines including Air Europa, Astreaus, Austrian Arrows, First Choice Airways, Thomas Cook Airlines, Thomsonfly, Onur Air, Air Malta, British Jet, Spanair and Pegasus.

Airline	Destination(s)
Jet2.com	Avignon (begins 22 May, 2008), Hamburg-Lubeck (begins 1 May, 2008), Heraklion (begins 20 May, 2008), Jersey (begins 24 May, 2008), La Rochelle (begins 24 May, 2008), Madrid (begins 2 May, 2008), Paphos (begins 4 May, 2008), Sardinia (begins 3 May, 2008)

In addition to these new routes, existing flights to Toulouse are to be increased to twice weekly, flights to Paris Charles de Gaulle are to be increased to twice daily and flights to Belfast International are to be increased to three times daily.

On 18 May 2005 a Jordanian registered Airbus A320 operating for Spanish charter airline LTE suffered a braking malfunction on landing at Leeds Bradford Airport following a flight from Fuerteventura. The aircraft touched down on runway 14 just beyond the touchdown zone, approximately 400m (1,300ft) beyond the aiming point. The pilots determined that the rate of deceleration was inadequate and applied full reverse thrust and full manual braking in an effort to stop the aircraft, however the normal braking system malfunctioned and the Captain turned the aircraft onto a level grassed area to the right of the runway where it came to rest. There were no injuries to the passengers or crew, however the Air Accidents Investigation Branch made seven safety recommendations in the final accident report. ^[11]

On 24 May 1995 an Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante aircraft operating a Knight Air flight between Leeds Bradford and Aberdeen entered a steeply descending spiral dive, broke up in flight and crashed into farmland at Dunkeswickmoor near Leeds. All 12 occupants were killed. The probable cause of the accident was the failure of one or both artificial horizon instruments. There was no standby artificial horizon installed (as there was no airworthiness requirement for one on this aircraft) and the accident report concluded that this left the crew without a single instrument available for assured attitude reference or simple means of determining which flight instruments had failed. The aircraft entered a spiral dive from which the pilot, who was likely to have become spatially disoriented, was unable to recover. ^[12]

• Leeds Bradford International Airport

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