Cardiff: Route Development & Rumours

[aviatorconcorde]

Just seen a post on WAF and i checked Wikipedia myself, someone posted on the airports wiki page Primera Air Malaga to start 28th October 2018. It's obviously wikipedia so should be approached with caution but it would be good for the airport to get a new airline especially in winter.

Interesting, it’s disappeared now.

 

[CWL94]

Just seen a post on WAF and i checked Wikipedia myself, someone posted on the airports wiki page Primera Air Malaga to start 28th October 2018. It's obviously wikipedia so should be approached with caution but it would be good for the airport to get a new airline especially in winter.

I might be alone in this but I hope it doesn’t happen. AGP with VY this winter didn’t set the world on fire so having 2 low cost operators on this route might be an overkill. What if both have poor loads and both pull out? That couldn’t potentially mean that CWL has no AGP route served by LCC for winter 19/20!

If on the other hand it was to new places such as ACE, LPA, PFO then of course it would be welcome. I know they are opening a base in AGP so it could be legs in it. That is just my opinion though!

.

 

[Jerry]

Interesting, it’s disappeared now.

It was deleted as there was no source linked with it. To be honest it could be just someone messing about, there was a similar add a couple of months back but that was Easyjet for Geneva starting December 2018 but we'll only really know until the airlines actually release the flights.

What if both have poor loads and both pull out?

Primera Air as well do have their own holiday firm so there is potential there. I would be surprised if it happens but i'm not sure Primera would force Vueling off, it also depends on frequency Primera could just operate at 1 weekly to get a foot in the door before a bigger schedule in the summer. They do seem to want to expand into the UK market.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Many times down the years CWL has been the subject of entries in Wiki that airlines have not announced. Many have turned out to be nonsense - probably wishful thinking on someone's part or somebody being crass - but a few have turned out to be true so who knows which category this one is in?

 

[Jerry]

I saw a tweet on the airports twitter feed criticising the routes from the airport and the poster mentioned Bristol and that they had way more routes than Cardiff. So i decided to have a look at what routes Bristol has that Cardiff doesn't.
First of all though these are the routes that Cardiff has that Bristol doesn't, Anglesey and Doha.
These are the routes Bristol has that Cardiff doesn't.
Athens, Almeira, Brussels, Basel, Bilbao, Bordeaux, Bodrum, Bergerac, Beziers, Bologna, Budapest, Bucharest, Catania, Cancun, Copenhagen, Chania, Cologne, Dubrovnik, Fuertenvetura, Funchal, Frankfurt, Florence, Gibraltar, Genoa, Gdansk, Girona, Grenoble, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Inverness, Isle of Man, Innsruck, Katowice, Krakow, Knock, Kittila, Kaunas, La Rochelle, Lyon, Limoges, Lisbon, Murcia, Malta, Marseille, Marrakesh, Nantes, Naples, Nice, Olbia, Orlando-Sanford, Pisa, Porto, Prague, Poznan, Prevesa, Punta Cana, Pula, Rovanemi, Rzescow, Reykavik, Salzburg, Seville, Stockholm, Split, Santorini, Skiathos, Sal, Sofia, Shannon, Turin, Toulouse, Vienna, Valencia, Wroclaw, Warsaw and Zadar.
Hopefully that very impressive list will get smaller over time!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I saw a tweet on the airports twitter feed criticising the routes from the airport and the poster mentioned Bristol and that they had way more routes than Cardiff. So i decided to have a look at what routes Bristol has that Cardiff doesn't.
First of all though these are the routes that Cardiff has that Bristol doesn't, Anglesey and Doha.
These are the routes Bristol has that Cardiff doesn't.
Athens, Almeira, Brussels, Basel, Bilbao, Bordeaux, Bodrum, Bergerac, Beziers, Bologna, Budapest, Bucharest, Catania, Cancun, Copenhagen, Chania, Cologne, Dubrovnik, Fuertenvetura, Funchal, Frankfurt, Florence, Gibraltar, Genoa, Gdansk, Girona, Grenoble, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Inverness, Isle of Man, Innsruck, Katowice, Krakow, Knock, Kittila, Kaunas, La Rochelle, Lyon, Limoges, Lisbon, Murcia, Malta, Marseille, Marrakesh, Nantes, Naples, Nice, Olbia, Orlando-Sanford, Pisa, Porto, Prague, Poznan, Prevesa, Punta Cana, Pula, Rovanemi, Rzescow, Reykavik, Salzburg, Seville, Stockholm, Split, Santorini, Skiathos, Sal, Sofia, Shannon, Turin, Toulouse, Vienna, Valencia, Wroclaw, Warsaw and Zadar.
Hopefully that very impressive list will get smaller over time!

I think it's smaller by one already - Ryanair seems to have axed Zadar for this summer. It appears to have been a one-summer not such a wonder.😉

 

[Jerry]

Just going back to this Primera Malaga post and the date is a Sunday, TUI operate their flight to Malaga on Sundays in the winter so potentially Primera Holidays could use their flight to sell their packages on similar to Thomas Cook holidays. Which got me thinking that maybe Primera could do what Thomas Cook does and operate a seasonal based aircraft during the summer and then use TUI flights for the winter.

 

[Jerry]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Norwegian turned up eventually . CWL-SWF I imagine would be a cheap flight to operate depending on what package the Airport could offer them. Although the focus marketing wise for the next year or so will be on Qatar, that's more important to get right than chasing Norwegian.

As it's more a CWL post rather EDI i thought i'd reply here.
I'd be surprised if Norwegian turned up at CWL unless APD was devolved. I personally think for Wales that if the country was to get a US East Coast route then one of the US3 would be better as it would provide onward connections. If Norwegian did operate from CWL it would be low frequency and maybe even seasonal.
I also think that maybe the airport themselves would be looking more to attract an US3 or more mainline airline that would be able to provide onward connections. Would be really interesting to know if the airport has actually approached Norwegian or not.

 

[aviatorconcorde]

As it's more a CWL post rather EDI i thought i'd reply here.
I'd be surprised if Norwegian turned up at CWL unless APD was devolved. I personally think for Wales that if the country was to get a US East Coast route then one of the US3 would be better as it would provide onward connections. If Norwegian did operate from CWL it would be low frequency and maybe even seasonal.
I also think that maybe the airport themselves would be looking more to attract an US3 or more mainline airline that would be able to provide onward connections. Would be really interesting to know if the airport has actually approached Norwegian or not.

I 100% agree a US3 carrier would be better for the airport on TATL than Nowergian would ever be. However, with United/AA scaling down their operations outside of LHR I think there's an even lesser chance of them coming than Norwegian.

There's also a fare war over the Atlantic and yields are trashed, so I can't see any airline putting on more flights than they have too and the only ones who will will be Primera and Norwegian trying to increase market share.

 

[Jerry]

This was released by Manchester airport yesterday. It basically highlights that the Yorkshire region is loosing 4.8m passengers a year travelling from this region to Islamabad, Orlando and New York. Ironically, all three destinations are well within reach from LBA with no further runway extension. I'm sure the LBA management will be fully aware of the figures released by Manchester airport. What will it take to claw back some of these lost passengers?

On the LBA forum Aviador posted that MAG are saying that between Orlando, Las Vegas and New York 1.1 million passengers travel from Wales to these 3 destinations yet Wales doesn't have a direct flight to any of those destinations yet Scotland, the North East and Northern Ireland combined have less people travelling to these destinations yet have direct flights.

 

[alphagolf]

On the LBA forum Aviador posted that MAG are saying that between Orlando, Las Vegas and New York 1.1 million passengers travel from Wales to these 3 destinations yet Wales doesn't have a direct flight to any of those destinations yet Scotland, the North East and Northern Ireland combined have less people travelling to these destinations yet have direct flights.

It is projected that the population of Wales in 2018 will be in the region of 3.2 million, I can't believe that a third of the population visits the 3 said destinations or the figures for the other areas of the said Manchester Catchment area. Its not April Fools again is it.................unless I am reading it completely wrong.........

In 2017 Manchester had the following figures
Data: CAA Stats
Las Vegas - 156,302
New York - 426,049
Orlando - 555,469 (MCO,MIA,SFB) to cover all angles

Total 1.137 Million, so that accounts for Wales, what about all the other regions in the MAN catchement area.

 

[Aviador]

I think it's 1.1m passengers it total originating from Wales flying from Manchester. The article is highlighting the top 3 routes some of those passengers are using.

 

[alphagolf]

I think it's 1.1m passengers it total originating from Wales flying from Manchester. The article is highlighting the top 3 routes some of those passengers are using.

That would make more sense, I think the article has been poorly written as it would seem to suggest 1.1million from Wales travel to the 3 said destinations.

 

[Jerry]

The most frequent routes according to MAG are Orlando, Las Vegas, New York, Cancun, Hong Kong, Barbados, Dubai, Singapore, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

https://twitter.com/manairport/status/981621190564483072

 

[Jerry]

That would make more sense, I think the article has been poorly written as it would seem to suggest 1.1million from Wales travel to the 3 said destinations.

Yeah it has been by the looks of it, also the bulk of those people would be from North and Mid Wales while that article does seem to suggest they are coming from all over Wales, it would be interesting to know how many people use MAN from West and South Wales.

 

[Jerry]

Off to Gdansk in 2 weeks. We travel here 5 or more times a year and quite often from Bristol with Ryanair although we have used KLM from Cardiff a few times. It always amazes me how may polish people on the flight are from South Wales and it has always got me thinking. We know BMIBABY made a go of a few Polish routes a few years back but it didn’t seem to work. Looking at how Wizzair operate usually opting for a different airport compared to Ryanair. Ryanair - Standted, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh. Wizz - Luton, Liverpool, Doncaster and Glasgow/Aberdeen. I really believe Wizz could make something of it at Cardiff. They have tried Bristol recently but seem to have been seen off by Ryanair. Just my thought and maybe I’m miles off but what does everybody else think?

Wizzair at CWL has never really occured to me, probably because they operate out of BRS but it would be great to see them at CWL. Eastern Europe does tend to get mentioned for potential routes now and then and Wizz would be a good carrier for that as they are known in the area and already half known in this area. Like Vueling they would offer up an alternative to people for the area flying to Eastern Europe and there would be the little PR coup of 'stealing' them from Bristol. With Eastern Europe i do wonder if the airport may need to wait until it's footfall is over the 2 million mark to consider offering those routes.

 

[Cardiffbay]

Wizzair at CWL has never really occured to me, probably because they operate out of BRS but it would be great to see them at CWL. Eastern Europe does tend to get mentioned for potential routes now and then and Wizz would be a good carrier for that as they are known in the area and already half known in this area. Like Vueling they would offer up an alternative to people for the area flying to Eastern Europe and there would be the little PR coup of 'stealing' them from Bristol. With Eastern Europe i do wonder if the airport may need to wait until it's footfall is over the 2 million mark to consider offering those routes.

They are dowm to one route at Bristol now Katowice. When I first started traveling to Gdansk it was handling 700,000 the same time BMIBABY were operating, its now going for 5 million this year. I think there is huge potential for a few routes at 2 weekly and with 280 planes on order and their new Wizzair UK subsidiary anything is possible

 

[superking]

Wizair have more or less pulled out of the UK regions to concentrate on Luton. Also wizair have pulled routes from airports all over Europe as well. I cant see them doing any new airport to them to start services any time soon.
But what is being said about a Polish route or 2 sounds good. Watch this space.

 

[Bcn_boy]

Watch this space?

 

[superking]

Watch this space is any thing can happen or rule nothing out.
What ever happens in aviation never ceases to amaze me,so hence my phrase watch this space.