Cardiff: Ryanair Flights, New Routes & Schedule Updates

[Jerry]

Now loaded on sale shortly ✈️

DUB is 5 weekly (no Tuesday or Wed)*
ALC is Thursday, Saturday, Sunday.

*some much more traveller friendly times on the DUB route for the winter!

Good to see. Hopefully we'll see them add more and the Dublin times are much more friendly.

 

[Samdorob]

Now loaded on sale shortly ✈️

DUB is 5 weekly (no Tuesday or Wed)*
ALC is Thursday, Saturday, Sunday.

*some much more traveller friendly times on the DUB route for the winter!

Hopefully they add an extra day to Dublin a little later on. I do hope they add Malaga through the winter.

 

[Jerry]

Hopefully they add an extra day to Dublin a little later on. I do hope they add Malaga through the winter.

Apparently they've dropped Malaga from some other UK small airports.

 

[MrFenner]

Apparently they've dropped Malaga from some other UK small airports.

Looks to still be available twice weekly from the likes of MME, EXT and NQY.

Such a shame they don’t see the potential of adding this route to their CWL winter portfolio

 

[Jerry]

Looks to still be available twice weekly from the likes of MME, EXT and NQY.

Such a shame they don’t see the potential of adding this route to their CWL winter portfolio

Guess the info is wrong then. It is a shame but the other routes don't have competition

 

[Samdorob]

Looks like TFS is moving to a Saturday for W26/27

 

[MrFenner]

W26/27 flights now fully bookable ✈️

 

[Jerry]

Additions for Ryanair at the end of October

 

[Jerry]

It appears Ryanair are adding more flights to Dublin and Alicante over the Xmas period.

 

[Jack Ruckley]

More extra dates have appeared for Ryanair in March to tie into the school holidays & earlier Easter next year.

ALC —> 23rd March

DUB —> 23rd, 24th, 27th March

Still to note that no extra Six Nation flights have been put on sale yet so surely they should appear soon?

 

[Samdorob]

Still to note that no extra Six Nation flights have been put on sale yet so surely they should appear soon?

Typically they’re released in Autumn I believe. If you scroll back through this thread there should be a note of it.

 

[Jerry]

Reported elsewhere that Alicante will go down to 2 weekly in January and Dublin 4 weekly. Bit of a blow especially after Alicante with Vueling.

It does seem that Cardiff may not be alone though

https://twitter.com/x/status/2095570042662306225

 

[Samdorob]

Reported elsewhere that Alicante will go down to 2 weekly in January and Dublin 4 weekly

The Saturday looks to be dropped for the first 2 weeks of December too.

Although it’s a blow, Ryanair have been good at adding additional flights for the peak holiday periods.

Looks like EXT - AGP, EXT - ALC, BRS - AGP, BRS - ALC suffers too. I don’t think Cardiff has come off too bad. Touch wood it stays like this.

Given the issues in the Middle East, I’m not surprised.

 

[CAN&I]

Dublin had already been reduced to 5 x weekly for Winter 2026-27 having been reduced to 6 x weekly the year before. Exxentially Dublin is losing only 1 day through January, not 2. Don't mean to nit-pick, its just the reduction appears a little less dramatic when framed against Ryanair's original plans.

Looking across the board it appears Cardiff has got off lightly (so far).

15 other UK airports are effected with Edinburgh losing 134 flights during January alone. Closer to Cardiff, Alicante and Malaga seem to be the main casualties with 50 flights removed at Birmingham, 30 flights at Exeter and 124 flights at Bristol, all over the period November 2026 to March 2027 (including all arrivals and departures of course).

Cardiff's loss of 18 flights in comparison seems to be the only "positive" to glean from all this.

EDIT:
Ryanair has this morning announced cuts of up to 2 million seats across its route network over the coming Winter season:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/40266567/ryanair-thousands-cancel-flights-winter/

EDIT 2:
We're hearing that there's around 500+ flights affected at Bristol, 700+ at Birmingham.

 

[Samdorob]

We're hearing that there's around 500+ flights affected at Bristol, 700+ at Birmingham.

Bristol surprised me the most. Alicante down to 3 weekly from what’s normally at least daily. I think it just shows how severe the situation is, and that Cardiff has come out of this in an alright position.

 

[Jerry]

Bristol surprised me the most. Alicante down to 3 weekly from what’s normally at least daily. I think it just shows how severe the situation is, and that Cardiff has come out of this in an alright position.

That's a big cut. I do hope it's not an indication of the summer.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

That's a big cut. I do hope it's not an indication of the summer.

Its only Dec and Jan so far, maybe more will come in February. But I think I read somewhere that 80% of their fuel is already hedged, so cutting winter may just be that saving on the remainjbg 20% they need.

To put a positive spin on it... seeing BRS-ALC go down quite a few flights to 3x weekly and CWL only lose 3, down to 2x weekly is good news for CWL. Hopefully VY cancelling meant people rebooted in time with FR.

 

[CAN&I]

Its only Dec and Jan so far, maybe more will come in February. But I think I read somewhere that 80% of their fuel is already hedged, so cutting winter may just be that saving on the remainjbg 20% they need.

To put a positive spin on it... seeing BRS-ALC go down quite a few flights to 3x weekly and CWL only lose 3, down to 2x weekly is good news for CWL. Hopefully VY cancelling meant people rebooted in time with FR.

Its really interesting to see how far Ryanair has gone in cutting routes at Bristol, Birmingham and elsewhere yet Cardiff has got off comparitively lightly.

Vueling on the other hand, while also cutting elsewhere, binned Cardiff off completely. Makes you wonder what Ryanair sees at Cardiff as you'd normally expect them to cut regional airports first, certainly within the UK at least.

Wondering if its anything to do with 4 airlines competing on the Alicante route at Bristol where there is only a 2 x weekly TUI service to compete against at Cardiff? Perhaps the yield and subsequent profit margin would be better at CWL or the turnarounds faster?

Also perplexing is how Exeter gets a winter Malaga service yet Cardiff's was dumped back in 2023.

Making head or tail of all these questions is is a challenge in itself.

 

[gulftraveller]

EasyJet does well at BRS because of a lack of competition. Likewise, Ryanair can do well at CWL for the same reason.

 

[CAN&I]

EasyJet does well at BRS because of a lack of competition. Likewise, Ryanair can do well at CWL for the same reason.

Make sense. Perhaps its more a case where despite competition exists via 3 competitors, easyJet dominates the market by a huge margin where the others have an orange-coloured uphill task to compete with. As you say, no competition at Cardiff so less of a reason to go all out to compete on price.

Wonder if factors figure such as cost (Cardiff isn't a Ryanair base, Bristol is) and turnaround times (i.e. an aircraft would maybe spend more time in the air making money, than sitting on the ground not making money)?