Cardiff: Route Development & Rumours

[Jerry]

In their plan for the airport the Conservatives stated Manchester as a potential target for route development and the WG have as well in the past but with environmental concerns now more prevalent should an airport like Manchester be a target when there's a train connection and maybe instead for Manchester they should be looking at quickening the train journey either with less stops or quicker trains.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Currently there is no direct train from South Wales to Manchester Airport. The changes on Trainline are either Crewe or Manchester Piccadilly. The quickest journey time is 3hrs30 with most options about 4hrs from Cardiff Central.

The issue with MAN is I think it will need connections to support the route, which would pretty much be pinned on VS expanding.

Now that Eastern are expanding and realising they need to become a proper player in the regional connectivity field what might work is to replace MME with MAN and run CWL-MAN-ABZ or Loganair are running 4x daily ABZ-MAN, which could be extended to CWL. It's likely a long way off though seeing any MAN route given the shakeup that's recently happened and every Airport scrambling to replace lost routes.

 

[Jarvo]

Currently there is no direct train from South Wales to Manchester Airport. The changes on Trainline are either Crewe or Manchester Piccadilly. The quickest journey time is 3hrs30 with most options about 4hrs from Cardiff Central.

To be fair though, Manchester is the destination people would be travelling to, not the airport itself. There are direct, frequent trains to Manchester from Cardiff.

 

[Silvercity]

To be fair though, Manchester is the destination people would be travelling to, not the airport itself. There are direct, frequent trains to Manchester from Cardiff.

TfW also plan to do a direct Liverpool to Cardiff when stock is available using the Halton Curve link which reopened about a year ago. So will be more S Wales- N West trains.

 

[Jerry]

Also thinking about it a potential route list of just the USA and Manchester seems a little bit unambitious, i'd have thought they'd have mentioned a few key European routes as well for business connectivity as apparently i was told today Cardiff isn't a proper international airport without them.
Hopefully with the train over time TFW will introduce a quicker service to Manchester and the North West.

 

[Jerry]

It's been noticed on the dried fruit forum that Paris and Geneva are marked as direct destinations on the airports route map. Paris for both summer and winter says information available soon and Geneva for summer has the via AMS schedule but for winter says information available. All the other former Flybe destinations are not marked on the map even though Dublin at least can be accessed via AMS. So hopefully some news soon!

 

[Jerry]

Maybe a long shot but also a chance for Cardiff to replace Ryanair on Tenerife and gain a new carrier?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1256844538783715328

 

[aviatorconcorde]

I’m sure CWL will be in touch with them.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Maybe a long shot but also a chance for Cardiff to replace Ryanair on Tenerife and gain a new carrier?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1256844538783715328

With many airlines downsizing because of the virus it's interesting to see Volotea expanding. If it works they could get themselves ahead of the game if the aviation market next year is not as bad as many believe it will be.

It's not an airline I know much about so I've done a bit of looking around on the Net. They are a Spanish airline with headquarters at Asturias and seem to be in the process of becoming an all-A319 fleet as they rid themselves of the B717s, with the current fleet size shown as 19 A319s and 14 B717s. All aircraft are apparently stored at present because of the virus.

They style themselves as the 'airline of the mid-size and small European cities' so that might be encouraging to smaller airports around the UK.

Against that they don't appear to operate to the UK at all at the moment. Their website says they have 16 bases in France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Germany: Venice, Nantes, Bordeaux, Palermo, Strasbourg, Asturias, Verona, Toulouse, Genoa, Bilbao, Marseille, Athens, Cagliari and Hamburg, with two more opening this year at Lyon and Naples. They seem to have counted Lyon and Naples in the 16.

I think they have operated from the UK in the past - Southampton for instance? - but that might have been under contract to a tour operator.

The UK though might constitute a double risk next year: the virus fallout and Brexit. If they could be persuaded to fly to CWL from the Canaries they might add routes from other bases in future that have a more business traveller flavour.

 

[Jerry]

With many airlines downsizing because of the virus it's interesting to see Volotea expanding. If it works they could get themselves ahead of the game if the aviation market next year is not as bad as many believe it will be.

I can only imagine that they may have been approached by the Canary islands government to replace the Ryanair base on the islands as they are a Spanish company that mostly serves Spain's, southern France and Italy's smaller cities.
If they do go ahead and open the base there it will give CWL an airline that they can potentially try and attract to replace the lost capacity on the route.

 

[superking]

They did SOU for a few summers and Southend. The flights were operated for TUI,im not sure if they did SOU last summer.

 

[mathers_wales_uk]

I heard that Volotea was created by the same people who created Vueling not sure how accurate that is.

It is an operator on the airports list and they have been in contact with them numerous times. Up until now not had much interest it seems.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I heard that Volotea was created by the same people who created Vueling not sure how accurate that is.

Entirely accurate it seems.

A dig around shows that Vueling commenced operations in 2004 with Carlos Munoz and Lazaro Ros the driving forces behind its creation.

In 2012 the same pair having no longer any connection with Vueling (now part of IAG of course) founded Volotea which is backed by three private equity funds. Munoz and Ros remain senior officers of the airline company.

They must be imaginative or employ imaginative aides because apparently Vueling derives from the Spanish word vuelo (flying or flight, in English) with the English suffix 'ing' added. Volotea has its origins in the Spanish word revolotear (to fly around or fly about, in English).

 

[geoff]

I think Volotea would be an excellent fit for CWL, with their slightly smaller aircraft, and large number of bases and destinations around Europe, they could open up many new routes for CWL, but of course they have to be persuaded to come to CWL first of all.

 

[Seasider]

A lot of their bases outside Spain are not that popular enough (to UK) to warrant regular flights.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

I've always thought Volotea would make a good fit for CWL with the 717 and the A319 on some routes. TFS would be a great starting point and it looks like from their route map they also have a base at Verona and Venice, both of which could reappear. The issue now is the current situation is hardly time to be starting new routes. I suspect that with them opening Canary Island bases as already mentioned, they are looking to swoop in and replace the gap FR left behind, but also provided they are in a good financial position, there could be more cuts Europe wide to certain destinations. That could put a new route to CWL on the back burner as it was relatively low in terms of number of flights a week. That being said I wouldn't be surprised if the Canary Islands, especially Tenerife are the holiday destinations that would recover pretty well. People may be put off long haul holidays and look at something more familiar, closer to home, when things get back to normal.
Also according to their route map they do appear to operate routes that aren't from a base. For example Nice - Malaga, Luxembourg, Split and Malta are all routes that aren't bases. That could work in CWL's favour provided the timings work for crew hours.

 

[Jerry]

As part of their state aid qualification Air France will be required to cut several domestic routes. So hopefully that'll mean they will have aircraft available for a route like Cardiff to Paris! Fingers crossed!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1265355574490927104

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Cant see any Airline wanting to start a new route in the near future, especially one that will dilute their partners (KL) route that's going to struggle for the next few months.

 

[Jerry]

Well someone is going to have to takeover the Paris route hopefully by summer 2021 and I don't see how they'll dilute AMS by doing so especially with the lack of direct flights to anywhere else in Europe. In fact the cutting of French domestic routes should help KLM as AMS would become the primary route to them from Cardiff.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

2021 Passenger numbers won't be anywhere near to what they were before covid19.
I'd rather see KL perform well on AMS and QR on DOH than throw another connection opportunity in the mix. We're not talking boosting figures to increase capacity and grow new routes anymore, we're talking keeping current route structure sustainable before losing more routes.