LEEDS-Bradford International Airport has certainly taken off in recent times but few who attended the opening ceremony performed by Councillor H Jennings, deputy chairman of Yeadon Urban District Council on Wednesday, October 17, 1931 could have predicted its success.

Since then it has attracted Royal visitors such as Her Majesty the Queen and the Duchess of Kent.

It has also been descended upon by aeronautical giants such as the Anglo-French supersonic jet Concorde and Jumbo jets.

In recent times it has become a thriving regional airport sending many a happy holidaymaker off to the sun.

But the Leeds-Bradford Municipal Airport (Yeadon), as it was called when it was opened in 1931, also played a huge part in Britain's World War Two effort.

The airport owed much to the vision of famed aviation pioneer Sir Alan Cobham - who incidentally, preferred a location at Whinmoor, north-east of Leeds. No doubt he would marvel at the airport today.

According to its current Director, Ed Anderson, it now sustains 1,500 jobs and contributes £35 million to the regional economy. It has undergone a £10million facelift in the past year which it hopes will increase its capability from the current 1.6 million passengers a year to 2.5 million.

The original aerodrome - as it was called in those days - was developed on 60 acres of land on Yeadon Moor. It was operated on behalf of the Joint Airport Committee and the Yorkshire Aeroplane Club. and had a famous figure in charge in NS Norway - who was better known as the author Neville Shute.

During the first three and a half years of its existence there were no scheduled commercial services but there were plenty of blue, de Havilland Moths flown by the aeroplane club.

In those days there were a growing number of special events, such as the National Aviation Day attractions, put on by Sir Alan Cobham with flights available at 5s (25p) or 7/6 (37.5p).

These and similar events introduced flying to a wide and eager public at a time when the wind-up gramophone and crystal set wireless were state of the art and television was unknown.

It was at such gatherings that many of the young men, who would subsequently, play a vital role in the air battles of the Second World War, gained their first experience of flight.

On April 8, 1935, North Eastern Airways launched a London (Heston) to Leeds-Bradford to Newcastle (Cramlington) to Edinburgh service using Airspeed Envoy aircraft.

Six hundred passengers were carried at 6d per mile in the first month. It was the beginning of the first scheduled passenger operations via the airport.

Others followed to Blackpool (Squires Gate or Stanley Park), Manchester (Barton), Liverpool, the Isle of Man and Perth (Scone) using de-Havilland Dragon or Rapide aircraft.

The future looked rosy, especially when plans for the enlargement of the aerodrome and a new £40,000 terminal building was announced in 1936.

In February 1936, No 609 (West Riding) Squadron, Auxiliary Air Force was formed at Yeadon as a light bomber squadron.

The outbreak of war in 1939 saw the role of the airport change dramatically. It was chosen by the Ministry of Aircraft Production as the site for a huge factory. It came under the control of the internationally known, Manchester-based, aircraft manufacturer: A V Roe & Co Ltd, more popularly known as AVRO.

It covered an area of 1,500,000 sq. ft, and was considered to be the largest building of its kind in Europe.

Sixty per cent of the 17,500 work force were women and they worked a 69 hour week. They made in excess of 5,000 aircraft. Ansons, Lancasters, Yorks and Lincolns, were produced there in what was a massive contribution to the war effort.

The advent of the Lancaster in 1942, saw Yeadon's grassed runways replaced by a 'hard' surface. It was an improvement which, although unrecognised at the time, almost certainly gifted it a post-war future.

During 1946 Anson XIX's built at Yeadon created history when they inaugurated the first non-stop commercial passenger services from London to Dublin, Belfast and Glasgow. But, in September aircraft production at the factory ceased.

The airfield was transferred to the control of the Ministry of Civil Aviation in 1947 with the West Riding Flying Club and the Lancashire Aircraft Corporation using the facilities..

Captain Worrall, who had spent the war years as AVRO's chief test pilot at Yeadon, became the Lancashire Aircraft Corporation's manager. Part of his duties were to oversee the servicing of company aircraft which were involved in the huge Berlin airlift of 1948-49.

Scheduled commercial passenger services were re-introduced in May 1949 when LAC began operations to London (Northolt) and the Isle of Man but the Suez crisis in 1953 resulted in the Ministry of Civil Aviation withdrawing facilities at Yeadon and halted all civil operations.

Yeadon Aviation was formed to facilitate the setting up of Yeadon Aero Club and in May 1955, began charter work and operated some services, including one to the Isle of Man.

A much more significant event took place on May 4 when BKS Air Transport took up residence. From then on scheduled services by DC3 (Dakota) to Southend, Belfast, Jersey, the Isle of Wight and Paris (Orly) were operated. Additional services to Ostend and Dusseldorf followed in 1956.

BKS developed its services and routes and introduced more modern aircraft. They established a route to Heathrow and were the catalyst for much which has followed at Leeds-Bradford.

The Air Ministry de-Requisitioned the airfield in January 1959. For the first time in 20 years, no military constraints could hinder progress.

Seven days later the Leeds-Bradford Airport Joint Committee once more assumed control and improvements such as permanent lighting to runways and approaches, extensions to passenger facilities and an enlarged parking apron followed.

A new era had begun! Yeadon Aviation Limited and Yeadon Aero Club were disbanded to be replaced by a re-junevated Yorkshire Aeroplane Club, which is still going strong.

Work began on the construction of a new, longer runway, 15/33 in 1963, and this was completed in April 1965, the same month in which the Queen made her first visit to the airport.

She flew in on an aircraft of the Queens Flight to attend the funeral of the Princess Royal at Harewood House.

A new modern passenger terminal was opened in February 1968, but plans for a longer runway had to be 'put on ice' in 1970 after a government Minister ruled that a Public Inquiry must be held.

Business escalated at a pace. Britannia Airways commenced flights for Thomson Holidays to Barcelona, Alicante, Malaga, Palma and Ibiza - a trickle which has since become a flood!

Passenger numbers grew to 331,474 in 1978 and, during the same year a government White Paper confirmed that Yorkshire could sustain a Category B regional airport. It concluded that Leeds-Bradford could fulfil this role if runway 15/33 was extended.

This went ahead after a second Public Inquiry in 1980 and was included in a £20million package of improvements.

The runway extension cost £75m and necessitated the underground diversion, by means of a tunnel, of the A658 Bradford-Harrogate Road, over which it passed.

To mark the completion in 1984 a British Airways Boeing 747: G-AWND, named 'Spirit of Yorkshire' for the occasion, became the first passenger carrying Jumbo to use the airport.

Shortly after 11am on November 4, the giant plane lifted off from the new runway watched by 70,000 people gathered at vantage points around the area.

Another star visitor in 1985 was Concorde. The Air France Concorde F-BTSD became the first of it's type to use the airport.

That such an opportunity was lost to British Airways, which at the time still considered runway 15/33 too short - was the cause of some dismay.

The majority of the 60,000 spectators who came to see Concorde's first appearance at Yeadon were soon appeased as Captain Machavoine, despite poor weather conditions, put the 'supersonic jet through its paces before returning to Paris.

In 1994 Leeds Metropolitan Council approved an application for 24 hour flying - subject to certain restrictions - the door was thrown open to what many thought would be a golden future.

Today you can fly to 32 destinations from the airport with more in the pipeline for 2002.

Passenger numbers having increased by 80per cent since 1994

The airport now enjoys riches its founders could barely have imagined.