Cardiff: Route Development & Rumours

[Jerry]

Easyjet have recently added BRS-BHD and it makes me wonder if that might make it a little bit harder for the airport to attract an airline to operate CWL-BHD in the future.

 

[geoff]

Yes the airport is really struggling at the moment to get new routes, especially the basic domestic routes, with no enthusiasm from our green friends in the Welsh Labour party.

 

[Jerry]

Yes the airport is really struggling at the moment to get new routes, especially the basic domestic routes, with no enthusiasm from our green friends in the Welsh Labour party.

At the moment it seems like that the pre pandemic holiday side has been restored with TUI at 3 based aircraft, Wizz at 1 replacing Thomas Cook and Ryanair and Vueling operating non based flights to Spain and Portugal but that the basic Flybe operation hasn't and may well take a while to. It does make me start questioning whether routes like Belfast will actually ever return and whether Edinburgh will ever go back to double daily and whether the passenger volume routes like those brought will ever return.

 

[geoff]

Easyjet are so prominent at BRS, many of the South Wales passengers don't look anywhere else to book their flights, but many of them have had bad experiences at BRS lately, which may well make them think twice in the future.

 

[Nuffsaid]

CWL should be using this opportunity to capitalise on the problems at BRS.

 

[Silvercity]

Easyjet have recently added BRS-BHD and it makes me wonder if that might make it a little bit harder for the airport to attract an airline to operate CWL-BHD in the future.

I was pretty amazed the new Flybe didn't jump on CWL-BHD. What they have done route wise is even more amazing and not in a very logical way in my view.

 

[Jerry]

I was pretty amazed the new Flybe didn't jump on CWL-BHD. What they have done route wise is even more amazing and not in a very logical way in my view.

Unfortunately at the moment it seems that airlines like Flybe and Emerald Air don't seem interested in the Belfast route. Hopefully as they expand they might consider Cardiff again but i fear it could be a while until they do.

 

[Silvercity]

Unfortunately at the moment it seems that airlines like Flybe and Emerald Air don't seem interested in the Belfast route. Hopefully as they expand they might consider Cardiff again but i fear it could be a while until they do.

Fingers crossed.

 

[Silvercity]

I heard the Cardiff - Valley route is not going to be supported by the Welsh Government anymore. Have they said why ? Cost saving ? Not environmentally acceptable ?

 

[geoff]

Not environmentally acceptable was one of the reasons, another was they did not think they would be able to regain the passenger numbers on the route, due to the fact that working practices had now changed.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

According to the BRS forum Easyjet are increasing BRS-GVA and BRS-Paris (CDG and ORY).
GVA has between 3 and 6 DAILY flights depending on the day of the week
PAR has between 3 and 5 DAILY flights depending on the day of the week.

That's a huge amount of demand that needs to be tapped into. Only 5/6 years ago BMI were the only operator to Paris double daily and EZY slowly started to introduce services.

I would hope Vueling would try ORY again, but could be a possibility for Wizz.
Geneva is almost a certain winter destination that Wizz need to fly to in order to fill their current schedule.

 

[CWL94]

There’s talk that VY are flying EDI-ORY summer seasonal next year so there’s maybe an outside chance CWL could feature! Based on the stats for this year I do doubt it though!

I still believe AF/Hop is CWL best chance in terms of aircraft size and frequency!

GVA always been a mystery and never seems to sustain a service or carrier! Even BOH and SOU have up to 5/6 flights a week with EasyJet to GVA

 

[Jerry]

I'm sure we'll see Paris back eventually hopefully with Air France/Hop!. Is there the demand though for Ski flights from Cardiff to fill an A320/321 especially considering the capacity already at Bristol? Would Wizz be better off using the aircraft to a more in demand destination?

 

[Foxlimayankee]

With up to 6 flights a day, I would imagine a decent chunk of those are from Wales to support a few flights a week.

 

[Jonathan]

Any ideas why CWL doesn't have a flight to LHR yet? As someone who lives in N America and visits Cardiff quite frequently, I can attest that such a connection would be a major boost for the airport.

 

[Jarvo]

Any ideas why CWL doesn't have a flight to LHR yet? As someone who lives in N America and visits Cardiff quite frequently, I can attest that such a connection would be a major boost for the airport.

Probably the cost of operating out of LHR, the slot restrictions, the environmental impact too, especially when many bus companies have routes to LHR from Cardiff itself. Flybe in their old guise did LCY from CWL for a while but it was dropped after low uptake, it's just too close for a successful route all things considered. It's only 2 hours by train to London anyway.

 

[Jerry]

Any ideas why CWL doesn't have a flight to LHR yet? As someone who lives in N America and visits Cardiff quite frequently, I can attest that such a connection would be a major boost for the airport.

Way too close to Heathrow for the route too be viable. Cardiff does have hub connections to the USA via Amsterdam and hopefully maybe Dublin in the future with Aer Lingus.

 

[Jonathan]

Way too close to Heathrow for the route too be viable. Cardiff does have hub connections to the USA via Amsterdam and hopefully maybe Dublin in the future with Aer Lingus.

I live in Vancouver and I've never found the connections via AMS to be viable - either very long layovers and/or it's very expensive compared flying BA or AC direct (or via the US). I believe Dublin only has a seasonal schedule from YVR too.

I'd love to see a flight to CWL from YVR or even YYZ but alas I don't think that's going to happen any time soon. I appreciate the train is fairly easy although it's not cheap and a flight between CWL and LHR would be so much more convenient.

Post automatically merged: Dec 25, 2022

Probably the cost of operating out of LHR, the slot restrictions, the environmental impact too, especially when many bus companies have routes to LHR from Cardiff itself. Flybe in their old guise did LCY from CWL for a while but it was dropped after low uptake, it's just too close for a successful route all things considered. It's only 2 hours by train to London anyway.

I seem to remember that the service to LCY was extremely popular, or perhaps I'm mistaken?

 

[CM.]

Some good news for CWL - Volotea will operate charters to Lyon and Nantes

https://twitter.com/x/status/1625796465896333315

 

[Jerry]

Lyon is for the Australia game of the Rugby World Cup, Nantes for the Georgia game.