Cardiff Airport - General Thread

[TheLocalYokel]

I've read one or two other 'reports' of travellers who echo your sentiments E m. From what they and you say a significant improvement in the passenger experience has been brought about by a relatively small amount of money.

Although the airport is on the rise 1.2 mppa is still less than 60% of the number it once handled. Do you think that if 2 mppa came about again in, say, the next couple of years that the current facilities would be sufficient to provide the same sort of service that you clearly enjoyed and describe?

 

[Em0866]

Good to know that others have been saying similar things about the airport experience there. As it currently stands I do not think it could stay as it is to handle the magic 2m pax mark. But with increased pax numbers come more revenue, so the development of this airport, as with any other, with more pax comes the rewards and more improvements. Don't get me wrong, it is not perfect, but they are streets ahead of where they were when WG took it over.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Don't get me wrong, it is not perfect, but they are streets ahead of where they were when WG took it over.

I don't know if you read my post (of yesterday) in the CWL CAA stats thread but I said that the previous owner had allowed the airport to wilt well beyond the effects of the recession and had spent only the minimum amount of money on the place consistent with maintaining its legal status to operate.

 

[Em0866]

Yes I did see it, although only earlier today. I think it is obvious that the previous owners were running it to the ground. However controversial WG was in buying the airport, there is no doubt in my mind if they hadn't then the airport would not be operational now.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Cardiff Airport lacks long-term expansion plan, say AMs

Cardiff Airport is missing its passenger targets and lacks a long-term plan to expand, a committee of AMs has said.

The airport was bought by the Welsh Government for £52m in 2013.

The decision to buy and the price paid caused controversy, but the Public Accounts Committee said ministers had had "a clear rationale" for going ahead with the deal.

The transport minister said swift action saved the airport from closure.

Edwina Hart added that customer satisfaction was at an "all-time high".

Full BBC report at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-35870576

The committee is querying the price paid for the airport and criticises the fact that the projected passenger total for 2017-2018 of 1.4 million is below that used in the business plan which spoke of 2 million passengers per annum by that time.

So far as spassenger numbers are concerned this demonstrates the committee's fundamental lack of knowledge of the industry. Passenger projection is nowhere near an exact science and can be little more than an educated guess. Witness those master plans produced by airports following the government white paper in 2003. All have turned out to be wildly over estimated with, for example, CWL saying they would be handling over 4 mppa by now, BRS over 8 mppa and EXT nearly 2 mppa. The realities are currently respectively 1.2 million 6.9 million and 800,000.

 

[CraigW92]

Pretty quiet at the moment for CWL, TCX and TOMs summer 17 schedules loaded and only a few tweaks to the timings of some flights, I notice routes Europe starts from tomorrow, or the speed dating expierence for airlines as I like to call it ! hopefully some good news can be gained from that.

I read online that a new Cypriot carrier called cobalt is starting operations from June and lists Cardiff amongst 4 other UK airports as a destination for operations from July to Larnaca, press confrence scheduled for May when apparently all will be revealed!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Welcome to Forums4Airports, Craig.

Yes, I read the Cobalt intentions the other day. Always good news when a new airline begins at any airport and it's obviously a vote of confidence in CWL that it's amongst a small number of UK airports that have been chosen for this start-up.

It's also a positive step that CWL now sends representatives to Routes Europe and World Routes which was not always the case under the previous owners.

As you point out, TOM and TCX haven't added much to summer 2017 but the initial programmes are often tweaked and altered before the season starts.

Now the winter has ended Flybe should begin to enjoy much better loads across its entire CWL network. Some such as EDI and CDG were very good through the winter and others certainly acceptable, with a minority disappointing. That said, as always yields are the thing that count and we never know those details. It's not unexpected that Flybe is making some changes in its CWL network later this year with Berlin (that should be very popular) appearing and Dusseldorf reducing. This sort of thing happens everywhere of course.

Vueling will be an increased presence this summer and generally has excellent loads. I posted recently that I feel there is a much more positive feeling around CWL these days in every respect. It was badly let down by its previous owners who all but gave up on it.

The Ryanair and even Jet2 rumours are still doing the rounds and I'm very surprised that Ryanair has not increased its presence (as yet) apart from increasing its TFS route next winter.

We hope to read more posts from you in the future.

 

[CraigW92]

Welcome to Forums4Airports, Craig.

Yes, I read the Cobalt intentions the other day. Always good news when a new airline begins at any airport and it's obviously a vote of confidence in CWL that it's amongst a small number of UK airports that have been chosen for this start-up.

It's also a positive step that CWL now sends representatives to Routes Europe and World Routes which was not always the case under the previous owners.

As you point out, TOM and TCX haven't added much to summer 2017 but the initial programmes are often tweaked and altered before the season starts.

Now the winter has ended Flybe should begin to enjoy much better loads across its entire CWL network. Some such as EDI and CDG were very good through the winter and others certainly acceptable, with a minority disappointing. That said, as always yields are the thing that count and we never know those details. It's not unexpected that Flybe is making some changes in its CWL network later this year with Berlin (that should be very popular) appearing and Dusseldorf reducing. This sort of thing happens everywhere of course.

Vueling will be an increased presence this summer and generally has excellent loads. I posted recently that I feel there is a much more positive feeling around CWL these days in every respect. It was badly let down by its previous owners who all but gave up on it.

The Ryanair and even Jet2 rumours are still doing the rounds and I'm very surprised that Ryanair has not increased its presence (as yet) apart from increasing its TFS route next winter.

We hope to read more posts from you in the future.

Many thanks for the welcome seems to be a lot of nice people on the forum and I'm looking forward to the interactions with you all

It will be interesting to see what Cobalts vision is when the press conference and further details are released in early May, but as you say any new carrier is a real bonus right now, ex Avion Express LY-VEO was added just a few days ago so things seem to be taking shape, having a scheduled link to Cyprus would certainly be a positive addition, although new carriers always seem to take some time to bed in at CWL

Usually Visit Wales tend to join forces with CWL for these events however I'm unsure if this is the case with this visit

The charter movement has been static for a few years now which is a real shame, Thomas Cook now use Smartylynx for the summer operations, although Bourgas was added for this summer I think this was at a result of Egypt and Tunisia being taken off sale due to recent events, Thomson have added added an extra Tenerife rotation this year with Norweigan, however lack of any new routes is rather disappointing.

Flybe routes as you say have have had rather mixed months, it's clear that the E195 is too big for a few domestic routes, Jersey and Cork for example, Munich was also disappointing over the winter, Düsseldorf was canned in February and now only a summer Saturday service on a W pattern now remains, Verona started this afternoon so hopefully these services can gain some summer momentum, I believe Thomson and Thomas Cook may have taken a percentage on the BE flights to Faro also.

41% increase with 44,000 more seats than over summer 15 is a great boost, slowly and gradually Vueling seem to be building a good product from Cardiff, I posted in the Birmingham forum yesterday that it did take a while for them to become familiar with the Welsh public but with a period of consolidation of the current routes the hope is that more routes will be added for Summer 17 Ibiza and Rome were too that I fancied being added.

I'm really surprised with regards to the Jet2 rumours, I thought the furthest south they might come would be the London area, does anyone know where these rumours came from ? I am curious as to who the low cost airline is that apparently approached the management, the more I think about it the more I think this could have been Cobalt ? Only other airlines I could think would be Norweigan, I was always cautious about Ryanair, simply because I would think that any increase in services would result in them wanting the core sun routes from CWL, and of course Vueling serve Malaga, Palma and Alicante well already, I would hate to see Vueling back track on expansion plans because of this, there are plenty of Spanish( Canaries included) and Greek destinations which would work well in the summer months for Ryanair from Cardiff from existing bases.

 

[Ray Finkle]

I'm really surprised with regards to the Jet2 rumours, I thought the furthest south they might come would be the London area, does anyone know where these rumours came from ?

An unnamed airline has been recruiting for cabin crew saying that the will be in three UK airports with Birmingham first from this autumn. This airline carried approx 6m pax last year.

There has been rumours of Jet2 coming to Birmingham for a while and they fit the bill having carried a little over 6 million passengers in 2014. We had some speculation as to where the other two bases might be and Bristol or Cardiff, along with Liverpool and possibly Stansted, were mentioned. Cardiff being approached has possibly led to this rumour.

As far as I'm aware it is still just speculation and I've seen nothing official about Jet2.

A case of time will tell I think

 

[CraigW92]

An unnamed airline has been recruiting for cabin crew saying that the will be in three UK airports with Birmingham first from this autumn. This airline carried approx 6m pax last year.

There has been rumours of Jet2 coming to Birmingham for a while and they fit the bill having carried a little over 6 million passengers in 2014. We had some speculation as to where the other two bases might be and Bristol or Cardiff, along with Liverpool and possibly Stansted, were mentioned. Cardiff being approached has possibly led to this rumour.

As far as I'm aware it is still just speculation and I've seen nothing official about Jet2.

A case of time will tell I think

Cheers for that Ray, I can't think of that many airlines which this could be, apart from Jet2 as you've mentioned, I think the airline would be a fantastic addition to CWL, especially the fact that Jet2 holidays add more charter capacity, although I'm not too familiar with the Jet2 model so I'm sure someone would correct me if I'm wrong at all here, as I've said both TOM and TCX are very static here so that would be good to see.

I've still got a funny feeling that this low cost carrier could have been Cobalt, I remember Jet2 rumours around 3 years ago down here and unfortunately it came to nothing. If I am wrong about Cobalt it will be interesting to see what develops with regards to who this carrier is.

As you say I'm sure time will tell

 

[TheLocalYokel]

You could be right about Cobalt being the low cost airline that approached CWL, Craig. My feeling was that it was Jet2. I wasn't aware of Cobalt as an airline until this week.

Like a number of people with an interest in the subject, I'd expected Ryanair to have increased its presence by now. I'm sure you are right about the sun routes though. Ryanair would certainly have wanted its share of those. It's possible that Vueling could co-exist with Ryanair in this sector, at least in the main summer months - say mid June to mid September - but the summer shoulder and winter months would undoubtedly not provide sufficient traffic for both.

If jet2 turned up they'd almost certainly want some sun routes as well. In many ways it's obviously not a good thing in any business to rely too much on one customer so a competitor airline alongside Vueling would not necessarily be entirely bad even if the two did have to compete on some routes.

 

[CraigW92]

You could be right about Cobalt being the low cost airline that approached CWL, Craig. My feeling was that it was Jet2. I wasn't aware of Cobalt as an airline until this week.

Like a number of people with an interest in the subject, I'd expected Ryanair to have increased its presence by now. I'm sure you are right about the sun routes though. Ryanair would certainly have wanted its share of those. It's possible that Vueling could co-exist with Ryanair in this sector, at least in the main summer months - say mid June to mid September - but the summer shoulder and winter months would undoubtedly not provide sufficient traffic for both.

If jet2 turned up they'd almost certainly want some sun routes as well. In many ways it's obviously not a good thing in any business to rely too much on one customer so a competitor airline alongside Vueling would not necessarily be entirely bad even if the two did have to compete on some routes.

I'm just putting two and two together and could be coming up with six ! But thinking about the timescale of things this could work out, you could indeed be right about Jet2 mind Yokel, it shall be interesting to see what develops in regards to either or even both airlines.

I would fully expect Vueling to announce some sort of increase presence from next summer, whether this would be Alicante and Malaga up to 5 x weekly or a new route such as Rome, you are correct there Yokel, Summer services seem to sell themselves, very strong load factors over the course of all sun destinations it's winter sun where you then start to have a problem, there is till plenty of Spanish destinations that remain totally unserved from a scheduled point of view, Ibiza and Murcia amongst a bucket full of others, Will be very interesting to see what Ryanair will do for next summer. Expansion seems to be very steady at Bristol so perhaps this is putting the breaks on any from CWL ?

That is very true, I think it's pretty much nailed on that the core sun routes will be wanted by either Jet2 or Ryanair,the one thing you dont want is a complete overkill with two operators on a route with a overkill on frequencies, ill be very intrigued to see what developments we have for next summer, growth is steady and hopefully this will be built on.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Jet2 would offer extra capacity to the core sun routes but they could also offer some decent city break destinations such as Budapest, Prague, Pisa etc.

 

[CraigW92]

Jet2 would offer extra capacity to the core sun routes but they could also offer some decent city break destinations such as Budapest, Prague, Pisa etc.

That is a good point Ray, it would be good to see some new additions, BmiBaby used to operate a Prague route, whilst there have been increase pd city destinations in recent years, Munich and Milan recently added with Flybe it would be nice to see some new additions French routes in particular are pretty unserved from Cardiff

#bmibaby #CWLnostalgia

 

[TheLocalYokel]

That is a good point Ray, it would be good to see some new additions, BmiBaby used to operate a Prague route, whilst there have been increase pd city destinations in recent years, Munich and Milan recently added with Flybe it would be nice to see some new additions French routes in particular are pretty unserved from Cardiff

I was returning from Prague once with another airline and the bmibaby to CWL was loading at the adjacent stand. baby also flew to Warsaw Chopin (WAW) for a while against easyJet at Bristol. Both services terminated after 2008 because of WAW airport charges and the recession. Ryanair resumed 'Warsaw' to Modlin a couple of years ago from BRS and Wizz Air starts WAW from next month at Lulsgate.

The position with Ryanair at CWL is interesting. You will know I am sure that in 2006 Ryanair pulled out of CWL. At the time it was operating to Dublin and there was talk of a base being set up. The cause of the pull-out was thought to be a disagreement over airport charges. The previous owners of CWL seemed inflexible when it came to this sort of thing and was one of the negatives that helped run the airport down more than necessary through the recession.

Ryanair already had a presence at BRS with three routes but no base. The airline opened a BRS base in 2007 and has been there ever since. However, until this year their presence has remained fairly static although routes came and went to be replaced by others in bewildering fashion in the early days. This summer and next winter are seeing more significant growth (although still not huge when compared with easyJet). Ryanair seems to be adding to its presence at a number of UK airports this year although it repeatedly says that mainland Europe is more profitable for it. That being so I expected some growth at CWL this winter over and above the additional TFS rotation.

Ryanair might have another agenda at the moment though. Although it and easyJet have competed on over half a dozen sun routes in recent years at BRS they have now started flying against each other to Krakow and Venice. Wizz Air, as already noted, is also about to take on Ryanair on the Warsaw route. All of these routes will operate year round with these airlines and there must be question marks about viability in winter with this sort of competition. So it may be that Ryanair is concentrating on defending its corner at BRS before looking to CWL for some expansion there.

What would almost certainly be a game changer though would be if all APD (as opposed to just long haul APD) was devolved to Wales. Ryanair prides itself on the lowest headline fares and has a Europe-wide campaign against government aviation taxes. It loves to 'reward' anywhere that reduces or abolishes aviation taxes, partly to publicise its campaign.

If Wales had a nil rate APD then Ryanair would be at CWL in greater numbers. I'm not saying it would abandon BRS because that's a fairly big and certainly wealthy market but CWL would reap a dividend from that airline. I expect to see some Ryanair expansion at CWL even if APD is not devolved.

The only problem with the likes of Ryanair and Jet 2 is that a lot of potential routes outside the sun holiday destinations at CWL would struggle to fill enough seats on 150-189 seat aircraft, especially outside the peak summer period. There are obviously some routes that would be viable with these sorts of aircraft and you have already mentioned Rome.

Flybe generally has the ideal size aircraft for CWL and were it using the smaller EJets at the airport all the load factors would be at least good, mainly very good/excellent. They'd still need the 195 for some of the sun routes though.

 

[CraigW92]

I was returning from Prague once with another airline and the bmibaby to CWL was loading at the adjacent stand. baby also flew to Warsaw Chopin (WAW) for a while against easyJet at Bristol. Both services terminated after 2008 because of WAW airport charges and the recession. Ryanair resumed 'Warsaw' to Modlin a couple of years ago from BRS and Wizz Air starts WAW from next month at Lulsgate.

The position with Ryanair at CWL is interesting. You will know I am sure that in 2006 Ryanair pulled out of CWL. At the time it was operating to Dublin and there was talk of a base being set up. The cause of the pull-out was thought to be a disagreement over airport charges. The previous owners of CWL seemed inflexible when it came to this sort of thing and was one of the negatives that helped run the airport down more than necessary through the recession.

Ryanair already had a presence at BRS with three routes but no base. The airline opened a BRS base in 2007 and has been there ever since. However, until this year their presence has remained fairly static although routes came and went to be replaced by others in bewildering fashion in the early days. This summer and next winter are seeing more significant growth (although still not huge when compared with easyJet). Ryanair seems to be adding to its presence at a number of UK airports this year although it repeatedly says that mainland Europe is more profitable for it. That being so I expected some growth at CWL this winter over and above the additional TFS rotation.

Ryanair might have another agenda at the moment though. Although it and easyJet have competed on over half a dozen sun routes in recent years at BRS they have now started flying against each other to Krakow and Venice. Wizz Air, as already noted, is also about to take on Ryanair on the Warsaw route. All of these routes will operate year round with these airlines and there must be question marks about viability in winter with this sort of competition. So it may be that Ryanair is concentrating on defending its corner at BRS before looking to CWL for some expansion there.

What would almost certainly be a game changer though would be if all APD (as opposed to just long haul APD) was devolved to Wales. Ryanair prides itself on the lowest headline fares and has a Europe-wide campaign against government aviation taxes. It loves to 'reward' anywhere that reduces or abolishes aviation taxes, partly to publicise its campaign.

If Wales had a nil rate APD then Ryanair would be at CWL in greater numbers. I'm not saying it would abandon BRS because that's a fairly big and certainly wealthy market but CWL would reap a dividend from that airline. I expect to see some Ryanair expansion at CWL even if APD is not devolved.

The only problem with the likes of Ryanair and Jet 2 is that a lot of potential routes outside the sun holiday destinations at CWL would struggle to fill enough seats on 150-189 seat aircraft, especially outside the peak summer period. There are obviously some routes that would be viable with these sorts of aircraft and you have already mentioned Rome.

Flybe generally has the ideal size aircraft for CWL and were it using the smaller EJets at the airport all the load factors would be at least good, mainly very good/excellent. They'd still need the 195 for some of the sun routes though.

Ahh talking about baby has brought back a lot of memories, I was actually thinking about the Polish market from Cardiff , however this looks like it's been fairly cornered by Bristol if I'm correct in saying that ? I would have been curious if BE would have had a venture into it.

Yes sadly it seemed the previous owners liked to gain maximum revenue from airline landing fees, it's been well documented that this has been the case for that Ryanair service and also the negative attention that goes with it, this seems to have changed with the current management, although it has to be said what a loss Jon Horne was to the airport as he managed to turn things around and it came as a big surprise when he decided to leave, chief executive at Stobart air I now believe, a new "Fresh approach" is now said to be in place and I know the relationship with Vueling is said to be an extremely healthy one, which hopefully will lead to a bigger presence.

I actually expected some additional growth from Ryanair for this summer, nothing substantial but perhaps Lanzarote and an additional mainland/Balearic Spanish route, TFS has always been a high loading route, of course yields are a different proposition, but with a usual load factor into the 90s that's very pleasing, FUE tends to be the graveyard of the canaries with it seemingly being unable to gain any momentum from any operator. I was actually surprised with FR and Easyjet going head to to head on more challenging routes after seeing them for many years not stepping on each others tore from Bristol if that's a fair overview on things.

I remember reading this extract not so long ago regarding APD, interesting for them to state that Cardiff isn't well served, which is very true.

Cardiff is not well served at moment,” he said. “If the Welsh Government cut APD we could get twice the profit per passenger flying from Cardiff - and if you think that we are one of the most profitable airlines in Europe, you can think what that would mean for Bristol.

“There’ll always be a market here in Bristol but in terms of developing more challenge routes such as the business routes where the small and medium sized businesses want to fly to build new markets, Bristol will find itself the victim.”

I imagine most new routes would well be seasonal, you could even have a seasonal base such as Thomas Cook do these days, the one advantage being with Jet2 is you have the tour operator side of things which for year round breaks the canaries for example would do very well but there could well be a few issues with regards to other destinations, May to June shouldn't that much of a problem as you stated but even flybe have struggled to get loads on some of the routes in the winter months, 45-50 which ultimately led to the early finish of the weekday Dusseldorf route. I imagine that Jet2 are phasing out there 733s ?

I personally have thought there should have been 1 E195 aircraft and 1 E175 aircraft at the airport, it's clear that for some routes the 195 was and is too big, I mean for Jersey, Cork, Munich and Dublin it's clear that this is the case, although it was a 10 year deal signed it remains unclear if the 10 year deal was the e195 or will this allow different aircraft to operate after the leases are up.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

To take up one or two of your points.

Jon Horne is a highly respected aviation professional and it was a huge loss to CWL when he left for a second time. That said, the present incumbent seems to be doing a good job despite having a track record that involved mainly military aviation. Spencer Birns is also extremely able and it's good to see all his hard work starting to pay dividends. It must have been frustrating beyond measure having to try to attract airlines under the previous ownership.

Re Poland and the other former Eastern Bloc countries, I don't think that Flybe operates there from anywhere. easyJet only flies to Krakow from BRS. It has in the past operated to Gdansk and Warsaw Chopin as well as Budapest in Hungary. Poland and that area of Europe is now the preserve of Ryanair (Warsaw Modlin, Rzeszow, Wroclaw, Gdansk, Poznan, Krakow as well as Budapest, and Kaunas in Lithuania) and Wizz Air (Katowice and Warsaw Chopin, as well as Kosice in Slovakia and Sofia in Bulgaria). Ryanair has also flown to Katowice, Lodz, Scezecin (Stettin) and Bydgoszcz in Poland and Bratislava in Slovakia and Riga in Latvia in the past but axed them at various times.

So unless Ryanair or Wizz decides to operate from CWL it' s a job to see who might break into this market in a big way. There's always the chance of one or two routes of course because, UK EU exit aside, there seems no let-up in people flying to the UK from the former Eastern Bloc.

Incidentally Ryanair has been competing with easyJet at BRS for some years on the sun routes and a few years ago they went head to head on Belfast (easyJet BFS and Ryanair BHD) and Milan (easyJet Malpensa and Ryanair Bergamo). I'm amazed that easyJet hasn't brought back Malpensa. Currently it's bmi regional with a couple of rotations per week to MXP.

The Flybe load factors aren't that much worse on some of their routes than bmi regional's from BRS. It's typically 60-70% on FRA and MUC but less on MXP, DUS, HAM and ABZ. Can't tell with CDG as they compete with easyJet. On the European routes that they operate by themselves the fares are often eye watering in cost - can be £400-£500 return and more sometimes, so they don't need full aircraft to make a profit. I would not be surprised if some people haven't been crossing the river to use Flybe at CWL to the likes of MUC and MXP given the generally considerably lower fares.

A mixed 195/175 Flybe base at CWL has been suggested by a number of people and on the face of things makes sense. However, we don't know the details of the agreement with CWL which has allowed Flybe to use their 195s which had become white elephants in the fleet.

 

[CraigW92]

To take up one or two of your points.

Jon Horne is a highly respected aviation professional and it was a huge loss to CWL when he left for a second time. That said, the present incumbent seems to be doing a good job despite having a track record that involved mainly military aviation. Spencer Birns is also extremely able and it's good to see all his hard work starting to pay dividends. It must have been frustrating beyond measure having to try to attract airlines under the previous ownership.

Re Poland and the other former Eastern Bloc countries, I don't think that Flybe operates there from anywhere. easyJet only flies to Krakow from BRS. It has in the past operated to Gdansk and Warsaw Chopin as well as Budapest in Hungary. Poland and that area of Europe is now the preserve of Ryanair (Warsaw Modlin, Rzeszow, Wroclaw, Gdansk, Poznan, Krakow as well as Budapest, and Kaunas in Lithuania) and Wizz Air (Katowice and Warsaw Chopin, as well as Kosice in Slovakia and Sofia in Bulgaria). Ryanair has also flown to Katowice, Lodz, Scezecin (Stettin) and Bydgoszcz in Poland and Bratislava in Slovakia and Riga in Latvia in the past but axed them at various times.

So unless Ryanair or Wizz decides to operate from CWL it' s a job to see who might break into this market in a big way. There's always the chance of one or two routes of course because, UK EU exit aside, there seems no let-up in people flying to the UK from the former Eastern Bloc.

Incidentally Ryanair has been competing with easyJet at BRS for some years on the sun routes and a few years ago they went head to head on Belfast (easyJet BFS and Ryanair BHD) and Milan (easyJet Malpensa and Ryanair Bergamo). I'm amazed that easyJet hasn't brought back Malpensa. Currently it's bmi regional with a couple of rotations per week to MXP.

The Flybe load factors aren't that much worse on some of their routes than bmi regional's from BRS. It's typically 60-70% on FRA and MUC but less on MXP, DUS, HAM and ABZ. Can't tell with CDG as they compete with easyJet. On the European routes that they operate by themselves the fares are often eye watering in cost - can be £400-£500 return and more sometimes, so they don't need full aircraft to make a profit. I would not be surprised if some people haven't been crossing the river to use Flybe at CWL to the likes of MUC and MXP given the generally considerably lower fares.

A mixed 195/175 Flybe base at CWL has been suggested by a number of people and on the face of things makes sense. However, we don't know the details of the agreement with CWL which has allowed Flybe to use their 195s which had become white elephants in the fleet.

Absolutely, I think the airport would still be in better hands if he was still there in all honesty, having a management that is fresh and has a good relationship with all airlines is incredibly vital, it was more a case of stripping the walls back and starting afresh.

Oh indeed, I've just always been curious if it was a market they would open up too, I did have a browse of the Polish market yesterday and I didn't realise what a grasp Ryanair had over it, even more so with the announcements yesterday, I had a look at Bristol and it seems along with Ryanair, Wizz seem to be having a steady process if that's correct ?

There's a massive gap in terms of Scandinavian and Eastern Europe at Cardiff, the city has a growing Polish population also, I couldn't see anything drastic being added to Poland, I intially thought a 2 weekly Warsaw route but I can't see who the operator would be.

I know Flybe have increased MXP to 4 x weekly, seems to be quite a steadily improving route here, 68pax per flight which I think works out as a 58% LF, hopefully this can be pushed to the 80/85 Pax mark over the course of the summer months.

Could well be the Yields on BMI are very good with the need of just over a 50% load factor to make a decent enough profit, MUC has disspointed me, it's been pretty static over the winter, December was a pretty reasonable month incidentally due down to the Christmas markets, the only other route I thought that perhaps people may cross for is Jersey which actually surprised me with decent enough growth for March, momentum would be good to see over these neck few months for Flybe.

Well if there was a E195 and e175 here the loads on certain routes would jump from decent to very good, I would have thought the e195 would have operated at Manchester instead, I imagine if Flybe can make a decent enough profit on routes rather then having them parked up and with the help of that Welsh government they will be happy, Geneva and Chambery had a very good month each it is worth noting over 80% LFs which is s positive sign going Into next winter.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

CWL is obviously on the up following its miserable five years after 2008, and airports on the up are obviously generally in a much better position to stay on that up and with a bit of luck increase the rate of the up.

Apart from new routes CWL needs to increase footfall via existing routes in order to fund the ancillary revenue streams such as retail and car parking that are vital these days, especially to smaller regional airports. Stepping up existing routes, at least some of them, might be a more straightforward task than getting a raft of new routes, at least initially.

With that in mind I've looked at some of the sun routes plus and one or two others.

In 2015 CWL carried a total of 78K on both the Alicante and Palma routes, 68K on Malaga, 22K on Faro, 129K on Amsterdam and 43K on Paris (combined CDG and ORY).

Looking back to the period 2004-2007 when CWL was at its most successful passenger number-wise, Alicante saw well over 160K, Palma over 170K, Malaga over 150K, Faro over 74K, Amsterdam over 225K and Paris (CDG) 73K.

We know that CWL has always done well on sun routes, especially in the main summer period, so if a Ryanair or Jet2 did come in to compete with Vueling there could well be enough passengers to service both, although of course they need to be paying fares that will satisfy the airlines. Amsterdam is another route that history tells us has ample room for growth, perhaps a low cost airline alongside KLM.

A two-aircraft Ryanair or Jet2 base would increase annual passenger figures up towards the 2 mppa level so it would not need a massive increase in aircraft serving the airport to achieve this.

 

[CraigW92]

CWL is obviously on the up following its miserable five years after 2008, and airports on the up are obviously generally in a much better position to stay on that up and with a bit of luck increase the rate of the up.

Apart from new routes CWL needs to increase footfall via existing routes in order to fund the ancillary revenue streams such as retail and car parking that are vital these days, especially to smaller regional airports. Stepping up existing routes, at least some of them, might be a more straightforward task than getting a raft of new routes, at least initially.

With that in mind I've looked at some of the sun routes plus and one or two others.

In 2015 CWL carried a total of 78K on both the Alicante and Palma routes, 68K on Malaga, 22K on Faro, 129K on Amsterdam and 43K on Paris (combined CDG and ORY).

Looking back to the period 2004-2007 when CWL was at its most successful passenger number-wise, Alicante saw well over 160K, Palma over 170K, Malaga over 150K, Faro over 74K, Amsterdam over 225K and Paris (CDG) 73K.

We know that CWL has always done well on sun routes, especially in the main summer period, so if a Ryanair or Jet2 did come in to compete with Vueling there could well be enough passengers to service both, although of course they need to be paying fares that will satisfy the airlines. Amsterdam is another route that history tells us has ample room for growth, perhaps a low cost airline alongside KLM.

A two-aircraft Ryanair or Jet2 base would increase annual passenger figures up towards the 2 mppa level so it would not need a massive increase in aircraft serving the airport to achieve this.

It's exactly the way I look at things, it couldn't have got much worse ( apart from closure) the loss of Baby was just a massive massive hammer blow at the time, it's taken the best part of 4/5 years to recover from this in my opinion, renovation of the terminal and departure areas have helped freshen up the image, along with the the security area which have all been welcomed.

A new duty free area got opened a month or so a go, now operates a larger area of space and it's now mandatory to walk through to get to departures , much like Bristol and most other duty free stores, consolidation of the current Flybe routes are vital, they simply cannot afford to fail, most routes these days seem to be slow starters but gradually build up some momentum, With the bedding in process for routes now in place and routes that have struggled such as DUS cut to just a summer weekly rotation. Although with the FR regularly into the 90% LF with Tenerife it's no wonder this was increased.

Many thanks for the passenger comparison there Yokel, a few things haven't thr CWL cause in the past for example First choice withdrew a few years ago, Thomson and Thomas Cook fleet changes which reduced capacity, the loss of Baby, although routes such as Alicante operated daily in that period, I'd expect Vueling to make that at least 5 x weekly in the summer 17.

That could well be the case, there's also plenty of routes that remain completely unserved and not served well enough, Ibiza, Murcia, Reus in Spain for example remain untouched by non charter airlines, it's really th only way to 2 million would be to see some sort of significant development from either airline or a base from Vueling would certainly create more opportunities, originally Vueling told Cardiff that they were not interested in routes over 4 hours as this did not fit there business plan, this seems to have changed with a building presence in TFS. I'll be intrigued to see if Jet2 or Ryanair announce anything for Cardiff, and ultimately we may find out if they were in fact the airline that approached Cardiff. Any expansion from either airline would be welcomed and certainly would put Cardiff back on track to the glory days so to speak.