Hardly a week passes without an upbeat press release from Leeds Bradford International Airport (LBA); the latest one in last week’s edition boasted about the opening of an Asian food outlet in the cramped entrance foyer, where there’s scarcely space to sit down and eat a chocolate in comfort.

An earlier press report quoted an LBA sales executive as saying that “at Leeds Bradford we pride ourselves on being Yorkshire’s Gateway airport”.

As a gateway for business and tourism, LBA is an embarrassment for Yorkshire and the Leeds City Region.

There are few places more guaranteed to put you on a downer when taking your first steps on UK soil than Leeds Bradford Airport.

Has the management thought of asking the Samaritans to be on hand to meet all incoming flights? I have flown in and out of LBA four times within the past 12 months and on each occasion the experience has been a deeply depressing one.

It is perhaps invidious to compare LBA’s claustrophobic and dingy facilities with the bright and spacious terminals at Dubrovnik, Ibiza, Malaga and Barcelona — to name just four.

LBA could do more — much more — to improve the comfort and convenience of passengers within the existing terminal, until such time as the entire building is (hopefully) razed to the ground and replaced by a facility befitting the 21st century.

The toilets are pure Alcatraz, the retail offer is poor and the bar and catering is abysmal and extortionately priced – look out for the same tired old selection of Danish pastries and sandwiches.

Arrival and departure areas are hopelessly inadequate, and the transit arrangements for passengers to and from aircraft takes me back to Kabul Airport, circa 1978.

Returning from Barcelona last March our Jet2.com Boeing 737 parked up several hundred yards from the terminal and so a transit bus was provided.

The corroding internal bodywork of this vehicle suggested that it must have been rescued from the Bus Heaven – by which I mean the breakers yard.

On arrival in the terminal, the escalator was not working so everyone had to trudge up the long flight of stairs with heavy luggage to the first floor immigration control area.

Flying in from Malaga at around midnight just a few days ago, we had to walk the several hundred yards from the aircraft to the terminal – the fleet of two veteran transit buses had been put to bed for the night.

Not quite what you expect from an “international” airport is it.

LBA neither looks nor feels like an international airport but more like a low cost carrier terminal.

The place would do much better in terms of attracting the investment that it so urgently requires if the title was changed to plain and simple “Leeds Airport”.

Geoffrey Mogridge Tivoli Place, Ilkley