Qatar Airways

[Jerry]

A daily service with flights 351 days of the year (assuming none on Xmas day) on a Boeing 787 8 would have 15,444 business class seats on sale and 164, 268 economy seats on sale. Also the catchment for these flights aren't just from Wales and the West country. It'll be trying to attract Chinese, Australians, New Zealanders, Malaysians, Singaporeans, Japanese, Arabs and Indians just to name a few countries that they will be able to connect to to fill the aircraft. The key will be to advertise that the service is there and to get tour companies from those to offer the flights and I'm pretty sure Qatar will have those contacts.
Also on this side getting the likes of TUI TCX and Gullivers Sport to offer packages flying from Cardiff especially to destinations they don't serve themselves.

 

[Bcn_boy]

There are also many tour operators on this side which offer long haul on scheduled services such as kuoni

 

[Jerry]

And there are cruise operators who can book on the flights and cruises are popular from Wales.

 

[Jerry]

Cargo wise. A Boeing 787 8 has 4846 ft3 and can take 28 LD3 or 9 (88x125) pallets.
In comparison an A321 has 1826 ft3 and can take 10 LD3s and no pallets. That's a lot less potential cargo for Qatar to tap into.

 

[Tinkerman]

That capacity of the A321 will be hardly anything by the time passengers luggage is taken into account, given that at least two to four lorry loads (20T plus) goes down the M4 everyday.

That plus the additional freight traffic this will generate should occupy the B787 quite nicely. As i've said previously the tough part will be filling the passengers, although thinking of it that should be relatively easy given CWL's figures to QR too. All remains to be seen, it's mere guesswork at the moment although the early signs are pointing towards a daily B787.

 

[Severn]

A daily service with flights 351 days of the year (assuming none on Xmas day) on a Boeing 787 8 would have 15,444 business class seats on sale and 164, 268 economy seats on sale. Also the catchment for these flights aren't just from Wales and the West country. It'll be trying to attract Chinese, Australians, New Zealanders, Malaysians, Singaporeans, Japanese, Arabs and Indians just to name a few countries that they will be able to connect to to fill the aircraft. The key will be to advertise that the service is there and to get tour companies from those to offer the flights and I'm pretty sure Qatar will have those contacts.
Also on this side getting the likes of TUI TCX and Gullivers Sport to offer packages flying from Cardiff especially to destinations they don't serve themselves.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.... regardless of the seats available, it is all about the actual number of bums on seats that CWL can attract.
In 2016 QR carried the following number of passengers to DOH from the UK regions:

MAN-DOH: 336,461 (293,357 in 2015)
EDI-DOH: 133,983 (115,529 in 2015)
BHX-DOH: 110,585 (208 in 2015)

Looking at the above numbers, BHX and EDI, which handle over 10,000,000 passengers per year have still only been getting under 150,000 passengers per year on their DOH route. These routes now operate daily on a B787, so where should CWL really be setting their expectations?

 

[Jerry]

Looking at the above numbers, BHX and EDI, which handle over 10,000,000 passengers per year have still only been getting under 150,000 passengers per year on their DOH route. These routes now operate daily on a B787, so where should CWL really be setting their expectations?

If Qatar didn't think they couldn't put the bums on seat then they wouldn't be launching the service. BHX also has Emirates which does 3 flights a day though i believe they are cutting one. EDI also has Etihad. They also both have flights with Turkish Airlines. The Qatar service will be the only ME 3 service in this area. Personally i'd be surprised if it was daily all year round more than likely it'll be 5 weekly there is the possibility at certain times of the year ie Autumn internationals they could add extra flights but the First Minister did say it was going to be daily so he must have been told that by someone at Qatar Airways. And why shouldn't CWL set it's expectations a little high. This is big not just for the airport but Wales itself.

 

[Bcn_boy]

And for the south west too!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

In terms of the passenger numbers, getting passengers with origin/final destination outside South Wales could be a key factor, possibly the key factor.

In reality that means principally the West of England. CAA stats suggest that people in Gloucestershire (ie the historic county, not the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire which is part of Greater Bristol) use BHX for flying as much as they use BRS, almost certainly more so for those in the north of Gloucestershire, so not many are likely to look at CWL. I'm surmising that Qatar will use different timings at CWL than at BHX. I think that at BHX on some days flights are in the morning and on other days later in the day. If they did this at CWL with a reversed time schedule to that at BHX that might help with some people in the South Midlands.

People living in the further South West, say Taunton and beyond, probably won't view CWL as an option in any great numbers any more than they view BHX as one now.

So the real target is the backyard of BRS, the affluent West of England. For most, especially business travellers, the default long haul (and short haul too to a degree) airport is LHR with BHX also favoured by some for long haul. Persuading a significant number of these travellers to change their habit will be a challenge. I live on the south-east edge of Bristol and I can get to LHR by road in one and three quarter hours. CWL is about 30 minutes nearer by road from my house with BHX nearly the same distance in time as LHR. I've done BHX from my home in recent years in one hour 35 minutes.

Had Qatar chosen BRS a lot of people would still have had to be persuaded to give up on LHR and many would not have done, simply because of the huge choice at the London airport not to mention things like loyalty programmes with other airline groups for regular travellers. CWL with its smaller core catchment than BRS and being one of three realistic choices for West of England ME travellers will, along with Qatar, have to get its message across widely in the West of England.

Aviation buffs in the Bristol area are already aware of Qatar and CWL of course but the majority of the travelling population is not. Indeed, many were not aware of the BRS-EWR service even after it had been operating for five years.

 

[Jerry]

Aviation buffs in the Bristol area are already aware of Qatar and CWL of course but the majority of the travelling population is not. Indeed, many were not aware of the BRS-EWR service even after it had been operating for five years.

That will the key and i'm sure they and the airport will advertise heavily in that area. Timings will be key as well especially to connect to flights from Doha. For example the daily Sydney departs at 19.15 Doha time but Auckland departs at 3 am. Singapore the 1st flight is at 20.15 and Bangkok at 20.30. So depending what connecting traffic they are looking at the timings will need to fit. There is a lot of traffic from Wales to Australia so it may be a morning departure for the Sydney connection but we will not know till the flights are released hopefully soon to give the airport plenty of time to advertise and build up to the launch.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Does anybody have an idea of the demand to Indian Subcontinent?

Birmingham has two separate flights with QR35/36 operating in the morning and QR33/34 operating in the afternoon (it arrives around 12:20 but doesn't depart until 16:20). These are designed to maximise connections to the different waves of departures from Doha. One of the flights is timed to offer connections throughout the Subcontinent with the other connecting to Asia, Australia etc.

In contrast when they started EDI it was 5x weekly (rising to daily a couple of years later) but all flights operated at the same time each day (13:00 14:30 I believe). They have since changed to an operation similar to that seen at BHX however.

I wonder which of the two options would suit Cardiff better?

 

[Tinkerman]

Does anybody have an idea of the demand to Indian Subcontinent?

Birmingham has two separate flights with QR35/36 operating in the morning and QR33/34 operating in the afternoon (it arrives around 12:20 but doesn't depart until 16:20). These are designed to maximise connections to the different waves of departures from Doha. One of the flights is timed to offer connections throughout the Subcontinent with the other connecting to Asia, Australia etc.

In contrast when they started EDI it was 5x weekly (rising to daily a couple of years later) but all flights operated at the same time each day (13:00 14:30 I believe). They have since changed to an operation similar to that seen at BHX however.

I wonder which of the two options would suit Cardiff better?

Almost certainly the BHX style operation.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Almost certainly the BHX style operation.

I agree - much greater flexibility that should help to obviate possible very long waits at Doha to change aircraft. It's especially helpful if your dates are not set in stone so that you assess on which dates the service works better outbound and inbound for a particular need.

 

[Jerry]

Does anybody have an idea of the demand to Indian Subcontinent?

According to Wales Online there are 20,000 people of Indian Sub Continent heritage living in Wales with 10,000 of them working in the healthcare industry. So there is some demand. I think like Tinkerman said they'll probably do soming similar to BHX.
I wonder if there are stats for on what days people travel to specific places ie Australia on a Monday and India on a Thursday? to help them decide.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

According to Wales Online there are 20,000 people of Indian Sub Continent heritage living in Wales with 10,000 of them working in the healthcare industry. So there is some demand. I think like Tinkerman said they'll probably do soming similar to BHX.
I wonder if there are stats for on what days people travel to specific places ie Australia on a Monday and India on a Thursday? to help them decide.

If we are typical, and I doubt we are and there might not be a typical traveller in that regard, but we've travelled with Emirates to Melbourne and back on various days of the week. We don't have a favourite day - depends on family circumstances and also any deals that might be going. When we went from BHX in 2010 EK were doing deals for people living in the BS (Bristol) and BA (Bath) post code areas for premium travel from BHX, or at least the local office of the long-haul specialist travel agency we use had access to such deals.

The same travel agency's Cardiff office might have had similar deals for people in the CF post code area using EK at BHX at that time.

Maybe Qatar might try something similar to get people from outside the CWL core catchment area using the service. They will want to fill the premium cabin but not at reduced fares if they can help it once any 'loss leaders' have helped to spread the word and have got people travelling with them from CWL.

 

[Jerry]

According to a poster on the dried fruit forum the CWL-DOH it's been written in Airliners World June edition that the CWL-DOH will be daily and another poster said it would be a 787. Is the June edition out yet?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I thought that the First Minister said it would be daily after he returned from visiting Qatar shortly after the route news was announced. He didn't mention aircraft type though.

 

[Jerry]

I thought that the First Minister said it would be daily after he returned from visiting Qatar shortly after the route news was announced. He didn't mention aircraft type though

Yeah he did. Maybe the magazine is just quoting him?

 

[Tinkerman]

The magazine must be quoting him.

They don't exactly have inside information into the going's on at Qatar. It was announced ages ago in First Minister's Questions that it would be daily.

 

[bayer328]

Excellent news for Cardiff.