The English county of Yorkshire had tremendous success during the recent London 2012 Olympic Games with competitors from the country winning with seven gold medals, two silver and three bronzes for Great Britain. If it was regarded as an independent country this would have placed it twelfth in the medal table just behind Japan and Australia but ahead of Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Ukraine, New Zealand and Cuba.

However, it is not just local athletes such as heptathlete and the Games poster girl Jessica Ennis that is putting Yorkshire on the map. If medals were to be awarded for airport network development performance in the UK, local facility Leeds Bradford International Airport (LBA) would certainly be vying for a podium place. London Heathrow has welcomed China Southern Airlines, London Gatwick a number of new operators and Birmingham Airport is poised to secure a Qatar Airways link to Doha, but with a Monarch Airlines base, network expansion from Thomson Airways plus budget carriers Jet2 and Ryanair and, most notably, a landmark new connection to London Heathrow by British Airways (BA), LBA has had a strong first eight months to 2012.

According to official data from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), LBA handled 2,932,425 during the year ending June 2012, up 0.3 per cent on the same period in 2010/2011 and its network grow this year and that planned for 2013 will position it well to report record traffic moving forward, increasing on the 2,976,881 passengers it carried in 2010.

The arrival of British Airways later this year will be a major development for the airport, resuming direct air links to the UK capital. The airline will launch up to four times daily flights between LBA and London Heathrow from December 9, 2012. This marks the return of a former bmi route that was previously served up until March 2009 when increasing competition from an enhanced domestic rail product between London and Yorkshire resulted in its closure.

The bmi decision was at the time influenced by its need to use its limited London Heathrow slots to serve more lucrative European and North Africa routes. In the final full year of operation (2008), around 126,069 passengers flew on this route, according to UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) data.

It is the connecting traffic that will make this route work for BA. The competition with the railways is intense and attracting corporate travellers between Leeds and London away from the train will be difficult. There will be a small market that will use the air service, however BA will more likely be targeting Yorkshire-based passengers that flying to destinations across the world to destinations not currently available from Leeds Bradford.

With BA’s much larger network than that which bmi offered at the time it flew the route the proportion of transfer traffic is expected to be even higher when the service resumes and will stimulate the market further.

“This important new service to Heathrow connects Yorkshire with the world. It provides our businesses with the access they need to emerging and established global markets, and enables those markets to easily come to Yorkshire, bringing their investment and inbound tourism direct into our region,” Tony Hallwood, Commercial and Aviation Development Director, LBA, told The HUB during a recent interview.

LBA will welcome Monarch Airlines as a new operator this year as the former charter airline continues to reposition itself in the scheduled market, but has now confirmed it will establish a base at the airport. The airline has selected the Yorkshire gateway as its sixth UK base and will position two Airbus A320s at the airport to serve 12 new routes and the continuation of the airline’s Munich route for Summer 13. The Bavarian route is one of two winter destinations (other is Grenoble) that Monarch will serve for the first time from LBA from December this year.

Monarch will offer at least twice weekly services on its new routes which include a mix of city and holiday destinations. These comprise Antalya, Barcelona, Bodrum, Dalaman, Faro, Heraklion, Lanzarote, Larnaca, Mallorca, Menorca, Munich, Rome and Tenerife. “Monarch’s extensive route network will deliver increased destination choice for leisure travellers flying to and from Yorkshire. This investment provides significant benefits to the local economy alongside bringing new jobs to the region,” explained Hallwood.

These two big stories have been supplemented by growth from existing airline partners of LBA, most notably Thomson Airways. Operating for its tour operator partners Thomson and First Choice, the airline is doubling capacity at LBA in Summer 2013 through the introduction of six new routes to Menorca, Ibiza, Rhodes, Tenerife, Paphos, Dalaman and the addition of another weekly flight for the existing Mallorca and Corfu routes. This follows the launch earlier this year of services from Leeds Bradford to Sharm El Sheikh and Tunisia.

The arrival of British Airways and Monarch Airlines will reduce the dominant position of low-fare carriers Jet2.com and Ryanair at the airport. According to data from OAG for September 2012, these two operators hold over an 80.0 per cent share of the available seats on offer from LBA: Jet2.com with a 47.7 per cent share and Ryanair with a 32.4 per cent share. However, both these operators have their own development plans for the year ahead.

To support its network strategy, LBA is making an £11 million investment in upgrading its terminal to handle the growing traffic and improve the passenger experience. The terminal development will provide a 65 per cent increase in airside space over two floors, creating a new departure lounge, which was formally opened in August, a new range of upgraded food and beverage offers, a major walk through Tax and Duty Free store and additional retail units.