Leeds Bradford Airport aims to expand after new terminal dropped

Under the abandoned plans existing buildings would have been demolished and a new terminal built

Leeds Bradford Airport still aims to almost double passenger numbers despite scrapping plans for a new terminal building, its chief executive has said.

Vincent Hodder said the existing building would be expanded to cope with up to seven million passengers.

On Thursday the airport dropped its plan for a new £150m terminal.

Bosses said they had withdrawn the proposals because of "excessive delays" and the decision to hold a public inquiry into the development.

Mr Hodder said the airport would now press ahead with existing terminal expansion plans, which were approved by Leeds City Council in 2019.

He described the shelving of the new building scheme as a "massive disappointment".

"It's forced us to go back and relook at our options and all the other different pathways we could follow to deliver the growth for the airport," he said.

"If we take the approvals that we already have and work with those in a really creative way we're able to move forward from now with certainty and deliver exactly what our customers need which is a modern decarbonized airport with the capacity for seven million passengers."

Chief executive Vincent Hodder said the airport still aimed to be carbon net-zero by 2030

Mr Hodder said that there was "great interest" from airlines in increasing flights at the airport, which current handles four million passengers each year.

"The runway is about 15% of its maximum utilisation and so there's plenty of opportunity for us to operate more flights through the infrastructure that we already have here," he said.

"What's limiting us at the moment is the terminal capacity. Things like security, central search and arrivals facilities, those are the areas that were capacity constraints."

Objectors to the new terminal building said expansion of the airport would make it "impossible" for Leeds to meet its greenhouse gas emissions target and would cause harmful noise pollution.

Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport (GALBA) welcomed the airport's plans to ditch the new building work this week.

Speaking on Thursday, Chris Foren, from the group, said they believed withdrawing the plans meant the airport could not "extend daytime flying hours nor remove night time flying controls".

"As they said in their own planning application, this means they don't have the capacity to increase passenger numbers above five million a year," he added.

Mr Hodder claimed that the airport still aimed to reach its target of being carbon net zero by 2030 despite an increase in the number of flights.

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