Would it though?
Bristol congestion charge could boost Cardiff Airport passenger numbers https://t.co/a1zN28Sryn
The article has exaggerated the effect of the Bristol CAZ. Already over 70% of cars are compliant and will not be subject to the charge with the number set to grow which will cause people to wonder about the point of it all.

It's something the government (the one that is quite content to permit South West England including Bristol to rely almost entirely on old polluting diesel trains for many years to come) pushed the city council into doing when they had other plans to tackle the problem.

I would be amazed if the proportion of passengers from Wales using BRS is anywhere near 30% of the airport's total. The article suggests that the scrapping of the Severn tolls in 2018 led to the increase. If it did then there must have been a corresponding decrease in West Country passengers when the overall passenger increase in that period is taken into account. This seems very unlikely. At the time it was thought the scrapping of the tolls would benefit CWL not hinder it.
 
would be amazed if the proportion of passengers from Wales using BRS is anywhere near 30% of the airport's total.
Based on BRSs pre pandemic numbers that would be around 3 million people from southern Wales using Bristol. To me that sounds more like the combined number of people from southern Wales and Devon and Cornwall that were using Bristol pre pandemic.
 
Based on BRSs pre pandemic numbers that would be around 3 million people from southern Wales using Bristol. To me that sounds more like the combined number of people from southern Wales and Devon and Cornwall that were using Bristol pre pandemic.
I think that is far more likely and is in line with the sort of numbers mentioned pre-pandemic. Still a big pool from which to grab some back though.

Aviation invariably says that Airport A handles x million passengers a year. What they really mean is that the airport handles x million passenger journeys a year.

An airport handling 5 million passengers a year doesn't carry 5 million individual passengers a year. Most passengers book return flights and many fly more than once from an airport in a year. The 5 million might well be just 2-3 million annual individual travellers.

So taking CWL as an example, for every passenger they could recapture from BRS would nearly always mean an extra two on the CWL passenger figures because of the return travel regime of most people. If some also flew more than one return trip a year that could mean still more on the CWL passenger figures from the same traveller.

It follows then that there is not the need to recapture as many individual travellers as some might think in order to show a trend.
 
I think that is far more likely and is in line with the sort of numbers mentioned pre-pandemic. Still a big pool from which to grab some back though.
One of the arguments made by many who are anti aviation is that the amount of flights taken is actually taken by very few individual people and on some routes they have a point, routes like Dublin and Edinburgh for instance will attract people taking multiple journeys a year whereas routes like Dalaman less so but I think like everything flying can be a habit in that people get comfortable with a certain airport and airline and go back for repeat custom. Passengers like that will be key to CWLs recovery.
 
The article has exaggerated the effect of the Bristol CAZ. Already over 70% of cars are compliant and will not be subject to the charge with the number set to grow which will cause people to wonder about the point of it all.

It's something the government (the one that is quite content to permit South West England including Bristol to rely almost entirely on old polluting diesel trains for many years to come) pushed the city council into doing when they had other plans to tackle the problem.

I would be amazed if the proportion of passengers from Wales using BRS is anywhere near 30% of the airport's total. The article suggests that the scrapping of the Severn tolls in 2018 led to the increase. If it did then there must have been a corresponding decrease in West Country passengers when the overall passenger increase in that period is taken into account. This seems very unlikely. At the time it was thought the scrapping of the tolls would benefit CWL not hinder it.
Its another ill informed article written by someone who thinks they know everything about aviation (and the world)
 
I have been trying to reduce my air travel to the absolute minimum considering the climate emergency we have but work require me to be in Edinburgh next week.

I’ve had to book on to Easyjet from Bristol because I can fly out early in the morning and back late the next evening. For where I currently live, bristol airport is about 10 minutes further from Cardiff for me, but it just seems like Cardiff could be having this business with better flight times and better fares.

Not sure what Wizz have planned in terms of the future……
 
For where I currently live, bristol airport is about 10 minutes further from Cardiff for me, but it just seems like Cardiff could be having this business with better flight times and better fares.
Well that's down to Loganair, I'd be very surprised if the airport hasn't tried to engage them to offer more than 6 weekly flights.
As for Wizz in the long run if they are to expand to 3 based aircraft and more they may well start routes like Edinburgh and Belfast but that may well be a long time away.
 
Some Good Friday analysis!

Now that Wizz are in town and Vueling are operating a fuller schedule, i wanted to see how much, if at all, do flights ramp up at Cardiff from now to high season, summer holidays. I picked two weeks, this week in April and the other at the height of summer in August. The number indicates how many flights a week are scheduled.

April
Alicante 9
Palma 5
Malaga 5
Tenerife 6
Lanzarote 5
Faro 4
Larnaca 2

August
Alicante 10 (+1)
Palma 9 (+4)
Malaga 7 (+2)
Tenerife 6 (no change)
Lanzarote 2 (-3)
Faro 4 (no change)
Larnaca 3 (+1)


Interesting that April, on paper, looks like a healthy offering of the classic sun routes out of CWL. What is surprising for me, even with the intro of 2 extra TUI planes in May, there isn't much of a change for August with the above routes. Whereas Palma almost doubles from 5 to 9. Lanzarote loses the 3 Wizz rotations so it can operate Corfu and Heraklion and Faro stays at 4 weekly for the whole season. For me this just highlights the gaps in the market that Wizz (and others) can attack in future as there is so much untapped demand. Essentially, looking away from Greece and Turkey, CWL doesn't have that ramp up of the most popular routes when compared with many UK airports in the high season. A second based aircraft from Wizz could easily accommodate just a few of the above routes and not even launch anything new. Adding 4 rotations to Faro, reinstating Lanzarote to 3 weekly, adding a 2 weekly Malaga, and adding a couple more Palma and Alicante and Tenerife flights you basically have a fully used second plane. Nothing new has been added and the risk factor of these not delivering loads is very low over the summer. In my opinion, CWL has a long way to go to find those base numbers for the summer as it never has been served to the demand thats out there. Underserving CWL has only benefitted BRS and that has grown quickly with the influx of Welsh holiday makers, especially at the height of summer. Wizz has started really well and the future of the airport looks bright to re claim the hundreds of thousands that could quite easily fly from their local airport.
 
Considering how big a holiday destination is I think it's a shame Vueling reduced Mallorca. Hopefully it'll return to 4 weekly eventually.
 
With the launch of Wizz Air it's been often mentioned that they are the first based low cost airline at Cardiff since BMIbaby. BMIbaby at their height based 3 aircraft in the summer and i believe 2 in the winter so i looked back to August 2008 and December 2008 to see what BMIbaby route network was like from Cardiff back then.
Summer
Palma de Mallorca 7 weekly
Edinburgh 13 weekly
Warsaw 3 weekly
Malaga 8 weekly
Amsterdam 5 weekly
Alicante 8 weekly
Murcia 3 weekly
Glasgow 7 weekly
Belfast 6 weekly
Jersey 2 weekly
Barcelona 3 weekly
Faro 4 weekly
Winter
Edinburgh 13 weekly
Amsterdam 4 weekly
Glasgow 6 weekly
Palma de Mallorca 1 weekly
Belfast 6 weekly
Alicante 4 weekly
Malaga 3 weekly
Geneva 2 weekly
Faro 1 weekly
Jersey 1 weekly
Warsaw 1 weekly

What is interesting looking at BMIs route network is there's no Canary Islands in summer or winter and nothing in Italy or Eastern Med/Turkey either and that there was quite few city routes.
Looking at Spain in the summer, between Vueling and Wizz Alicante departure wise is at the level it was with BMI but with bigger aircraft so with more seats, Mallorca has less frequency by 3 departures a week, Wizz doesn't operate Malaga but between Ryanair and Vueling there are 6 weekly flights with bigger aircraft so seat wise may well be around the same as BMIbaby days.
Faro between Wizz and Ryanair has more seats on it with the same amount of departures. For Spain the routes that are missing are Murcia and Barcelona. It does seem like capacity wise for LCC Spain and Portugal is very similar to what it used to be in the BMIbaby days so maybe we'll see Wizz especially focus elsewhere with any future expansion.
 
With the launch of Wizz Air it's been often mentioned that they are the first based low cost airline at Cardiff since BMIbaby. BMIbaby at their height based 3 aircraft in the summer and i believe 2 in the winter so i looked back to August 2008 and December 2008 to see what BMIbaby route network was like from Cardiff back then.
Summer
Palma de Mallorca 7 weekly
Edinburgh 13 weekly
Warsaw 3 weekly
Malaga 8 weekly
Amsterdam 5 weekly
Alicante 8 weekly
Murcia 3 weekly
Glasgow 7 weekly
Belfast 6 weekly
Jersey 2 weekly
Barcelona 3 weekly
Faro 4 weekly
Winter
Edinburgh 13 weekly
Amsterdam 4 weekly
Glasgow 6 weekly
Palma de Mallorca 1 weekly
Belfast 6 weekly
Alicante 4 weekly
Malaga 3 weekly
Geneva 2 weekly
Faro 1 weekly
Jersey 1 weekly
Warsaw 1 weekly

What is interesting looking at BMIs route network is there's no Canary Islands in summer or winter and nothing in Italy or Eastern Med/Turkey either and that there was quite few city routes.
Looking at Spain in the summer, between Vueling and Wizz Alicante departure wise is at the level it was with BMI but with bigger aircraft so with more seats, Mallorca has less frequency by 3 departures a week, Wizz doesn't operate Malaga but between Ryanair and Vueling there are 6 weekly flights with bigger aircraft so seat wise may well be around the same as BMIbaby days.
Faro between Wizz and Ryanair has more seats on it with the same amount of departures. For Spain the routes that are missing are Murcia and Barcelona. It does seem like capacity wise for LCC Spain and Portugal is very similar to what it used to be in the BMIbaby days so maybe we'll see Wizz especially focus elsewhere with any future expansion.
Back in 2008 4hr+ flights weren't operated by many low cost Airlines, including EZY and FR. It was deemed unsuitable for the low cost model which at the time was to fit as many flights in per day, per aircraft and per set of crew as possible.
bmibaby also flew older 737-300's which although could make 4hr flights, were a struggle. Thomson used to use the 737-300 to Tenerife at times but it was stretching the performance.
Also back pre-2010 there were a lot more charter Airlines around offering packages, and that demand has shifted to low-cost now, as well as a huge consolidation of Tour Operators. Back then there were big offerings from different Tour Operators to Turkey, often using Onur Air or Freebird. I think Onur Air used to have 5-6 flights a week to Turkey, some on the A300 with 350+ seats.
There was Thomson, First Choice, MyTravel and Thomas Cook, as well as smaller tour operators chartering their own Airlines in such as Spanair, Futura, Astraeus, Air Malta to name a few.
What is does show is demand is there, it's just a case of winning a lot of it back from other Airports.
 
Back in 2008 4hr+ flights weren't operated by many low cost Airlines, including EZY and FR. It was deemed unsuitable for the low cost model which at the time was to fit as many flights in per day, per aircraft and per set of crew as possible.
I suppose that shows how much the industry has changed considering now that the bulk of Wizz routes from Cardiff are in the 4 hour sector range.
 
Back in 2008 4hr+ flights weren't operated by many low cost Airlines, including EZY and FR. It was deemed unsuitable for the low cost model which at the time was to fit as many flights in per day, per aircraft and per set of crew as possible.
bmibaby also flew older 737-300's which although could make 4hr flights, were a struggle. Thomson used to use the 737-300 to Tenerife at times but it was stretching the performance.
Also back pre-2010 there were a lot more charter Airlines around offering packages, and that demand has shifted to low-cost now, as well as a huge consolidation of Tour Operators. Back then there were big offerings from different Tour Operators to Turkey, often using Onur Air or Freebird. I think Onur Air used to have 5-6 flights a week to Turkey, some on the A300 with 350+ seats.
There was Thomson, First Choice, MyTravel and Thomas Cook, as well as smaller tour operators chartering their own Airlines in such as Spanair, Futura, Astraeus, Air Malta to name a few.
What is does show is demand is there, it's just a case of winning a lot of it back from other Airports.
I remember Onur Air - BH air and Eurocypria used to come in too.
 
Cardiff Airport will see a boost on Dublin in February, the Italy airlift in March and no doubt a boost to Paris numbers in March as well.

Wales' 2023 Six Nations fixtures and kick-off times​

Wales v Ireland, Saturday, February 4, 2.15pm

Scotland v Wales, Saturday, February 11, 4.45pm

Wales v England, Saturday, February 25, 4.45pm

Italy v Wales, Saturday, March 11, 2.15pm

France v Wales, Saturday, March 18, 2.45pm
 
I agree entirely with you Jerry, the Welsh Government rules regarding Covid were in force much longer than those in England. I wonder where the people they interview live, they might get different answers from people in West Wales, the further 60 miles from CWL to BRS, can make a big difference if you have already travelled up from Tenby or Cardigan and then get stuck on the M4 at the Brynglas Tunnels.
 
I agree entirely with you Jerry, the Welsh Government rules regarding Covid were in force much longer than those in England. I wonder where the people they interview live, they might get different answers from people in West Wales, the further 60 miles from CWL to BRS, can make a big difference if you have already travelled up from Tenby or Cardigan and then get stuck on the M4 at the Brynglas Tunnels.
The comments were from a previous article about the airport that Wales Online posted about the airport. When I read through the comments of that article there was the usual negative comments but also a fair amount of positive comments as well concerning the airport experience and WizzAir. CWL is never going to satisfy everyone. There's always going to be someone who'll find a cheaper flight elsewhere or a destination that CWL doesn't have or no flights on the day they want to go or at the time or it's not their preferred airline or type of aircraft. People need to realise how lucky they are having so much choice close by.
What the article does show is the damage done to the industry by the pandemic, pre pandemic Bristol was up to 9 million passengers but last year had 2 million.
 

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