It’s our airport of last resort

Jan 4 2008 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

I HAVE flown from and to John Lennon Airport on a number of occasions.

For the most part, these have been smooth, satisfactory and stress free journeys. The most recent, however, was far from it.

Our party of four was flying to Malaga in order to spend a family Christmas in Spain, on an early morning flight on December 21. We left home in plenty of time and were checked in quickly and efficiently.

Our plan was to purchase breakfast before going through to the departure lounge.

As we approached the restaurant, we noticed the queue of people waiting to be security checked and it was massive so we abandoned breakfast plans and join it.

As we stood, we became aware of all the signs saying “Beat the Security Queues with Fast Track.” We were all uncomfortable at the thought of queue jumping by paying £2 each, so agreed to stay put in the queue which was moving at snail’s pace.

There was muttering around us about the Fast Track Scheme. Everyone thought it was a ploy to exploit the security situation and rake in some extra cash for the airport.

Then people started to get fraught and angry as there was a real feeling that the main queue was being deliberately slowed down in order to persuade people to opt for “Fast Track.”

Some people in the queue started to become very anxious as their boarding time was getting closer.

One group had their names called as their plane was waiting for them.

Group by group, people fled the queue and urgently fed their money into the machines and were security checked in minutes.

We, too, ended up having to do this in order to board our flight. It felt wrong and we felt manipulated. What had started as a happy start to a holiday was seriously marred, and had become very stressful because of this Fast Track policy.

I understand there are some times which are busier than others but the airport needs to know that this scheme is alienating customers.

From being our airport of choice, Liverpool will now be our airport of last resort.

Name and address supplied

Glad to see you back!

I WAS very sorry to read in my Daily Post that Ken Dodd had to cancel some engagements to have a minor operation in hospital.

But it seems that he is making made a swift recovery and will soon be entertaining again.

Ken is probably the finest stand-up comedian ever produced in Liverpool – and that means in the country.

We should all now hope that he completes his ambition to perform in every theatre in Britain before being called to a higher place.

In this man, we have a tradition of comedy and entertainment that stretches back to the old music halls. He is a terrific all-rounder and has a fine singing voice.

To me and to thousands of other Liverpudlians, it is astonishing that he has not been given a major role in our Capital of Culture year.

Nobody more truly represents our culture than Ken. Is there not a hope, even at this late stage, that he could be given some kind of ambassadorial role in this cultural year? After all, he will soon be touring the country again.

Meanwhile, all the very best, Ken, from all your Liverpool fans.

Dorothy Sullivan, Birkenhead

Travel sickness

THE headline in your January 2 edition speaks of an alarming decline in bus use on Merseyside, along with an editorial from someone who clearly hasn’t used a bus in 20 years.

There is no greater – in fact, a lesser – choice of routes, more operators have come and gone, standards have not been maintained, they have declined dramatically.

People will never use buses unless operators are legally bound to provide the advertised service. An example is the Arriva 10/10A (Liverpool-St Helens) routes in Friday/Saturday evenings which are appallingly unreliable.

While drivers do a difficult and stressful job, a minority alienate passengers with spiteful attitudes, for example, the driver of an empty bus who humiliated a mother who wanted to bring her buggy on board.

It is operator attitudes, and not congestion which is driving away passengers. It’s all very well Merseytravel boasting of new facilities – we have a state-of-the-art bus station in Paradise Street, but it is largely unused and passengers have to alight in the open street the stop before.

Bus priority lanes are all very well, but Merseytravel seems not to want to pay for any buses to use them at certain times.

R Mason, via email

Turn up on time

RE: THE story about bus use in Wednesday’s Daily Post. I have numerous friends and relatives who would gladly travel on one of the city’s bus services; unfortunately, there is a problem with the bus services currently provided. Buses are consistently late and more often than not don’t turn up on designated routes.

As with all transport services, the public will utilise services if they are prompt and reliable.

David Lucas, 2020 Liverpool Ltd

One step for buses

IN RESPONSE to the marked fall in bus passengers in Liverpool. May I suggest that all bus drivers are trained in relation to giving a smoother ride.

If this means giving them more time to complete a journey, then so be it. I know it is not an easy job. At the moment, it is claimed that astronauts do their G force training here.

BC, Wavertree

A negative look

ARRIVING at Lime Street on New Year’s Eve, and needing to go into the Clayton Square and Church Street areas, I used the underpass which takes one via an escalator to St John’s Market. How I wished I hadn’t.

This pedestrian conduit, which will in this our Capital of Culture year be used by hundreds – if not thousands – of visitors emerging from Lime Street Station, must surely be the most filthy, stinking graffiti-daubed and gloomily-lit place in the whole of the city.

And this will be the first impression many of our visitors will get. It is an absolute disgrace and shames everyone charged with ensuring that the city looks its best during 2008.

It is late, but there is still time to disinfect, paint and attend to the lighting in this abomination before it is too late.

G Lever, Huyton

Splitting heritage

I FULLY agree with Audrey Hodgkinson’s letter (Daily Post, Jan 2), with regard to the splitting of Cheshire in two.

A disastrous move for everyone if it is implemented and one for which we will all pay.

However, those of us in the west of Cheshire, who wish Cheshire to remain an historic country, should know that certainly their elected representatives in Ellesmere Port & Neston Borough Council, voted with their Labour and Lib-Dem colleagues for a split county.

Therefore, it is up to the public to do as the letter suggests and make their view known direct to Hazel Blears in government.

Moira Andrews, Neston

Farcical bodies

THE City Council boasts its commitment to community consultation and has six so-called neighbourhood committees.

These are nothing of the sort, they are configurations of six wards, almost the size of Parliamentary constituencies.

The farcical nature of these bodies is that our neighbourhood committee routinely meets in the city centre at Millennium House on January 19 at 6.30. Such a location and time means no local residents would dream of attending or inputting as those working in the city centre would be returning home for tea.

The previous area committees were in far more related to the communities they served.

Cllrs Steve Radford, Hazel Williams and Chris Lenton, Liberal Party councillors

Why the increase?

NOT many employees will be seeing a pay increase of 10% this year, most people’s salaries barely keep up with inflation.

If MPs can really claim to represent the populace, they are not going about it the right way by demanding such high increases.

I can’t understand why we let them get away with it.

S Healey, Rainford

Stage sensation

BLOOD Brothers is back in the city where it belongs, and all is well in the world. For our Capital of Culture year, I could not think of a more fitting opening. I saw the show on New Year’s Eve – it was my eighth time of watching it after seeing it in London and on Broadway, and it was excellent. All of the performers were brilliantly talented. Mr Kenwright has clearly done it again, and the more input he has in our Capital of Culture celebrations the better as far as I am concerned.

M Towey, Walton

‘Cozy’ nostra

I CANNOT believe the lengths that Pete Price will go to in his desire to court the limelight. The fact he is now prepared to boast about supposed connections with the Mafia astounds me. But then again that will only endear him even more to that element within Liverpool that actually find him entertaining.

The whole episode is distasteful in the extreme.

Craig J Earley, Kirkby

Moderate behaviour

THE recent behaviour of various Premiership footballers has been appalling. The sooner some sort of tougher regulation is brought into players’ behaviour, the better.

J Mather, Whiston

Belief in Bhutto

IN NOVEMBER, 1976, in the presidential debate at the Oxford Union, Benazir Bhutto proposed, and won, the motion that “the pen is mightier than the sword”.

If elections go ahead in Pakistan and her People’s Party wins, she will have been proved right.

J Morris, Hoylake