Cardiff Airport - General Thread

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Speaking of rebranding.... how do you locals prefer to call the Cardiff Airport Forum here? Initially the airport was listed as Cardiff Wales but I understand this is incorrect. Can anyone confirm and I'll change the forum home page accordingly. I don't mind adding some welsh if it is of interest.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

I agree with your thinking, planenut.

I think it is pretentious of smaller regional airports such Cardiff, Exeter and Bristol to style themselves 'International Airport'.

Cardiff Airport or Bristol Airport is perfectly fine and tells people where they are but the marketing people become involved and you get not only things like 'International' but ridiculous names such as Durham Tees Valley and Doncaster Sheffield Robin Hood Airport.

Goodness know what they will come up with for Cardiff's rebranding. Whatever it is many locals will still regard and speak of the airport as 'Rhoose' in the same way that locals around Bristol regard Bristol Airport as 'Lulsgate', if only to differentiate it from Filton.

 

[Em0866]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

I agree with Planenut, and leave the forum name as it is. What did that advert say? It does exactly what it says on the tin! (or something like that).

 

[NickCWL]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

New Cardiff Airport website:- www.tbicardiffairport.com
Plans for a multi million pound refurbishment was in the South Wales Echo today.
I like the new desgin. I would like to hear what other people think of it!

 

[Em0866]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Well after all the fuss in the press regarding the new name, they plumped in the end to ditch the "international". Lets face it, how many people have continued to call it just Cardiff Airport or even Rhoose? Many I would imagine.

Anyway, the new design I saw on the BBC website looks good and much better to what they have now, but I think they are concentratiing too much on more retail space and not enough on new desitnations/airlines. Yes I realise that the current economic climate is not helping. However possibly with the rebranding it may be a starting block for things to come with new desitnations and airlines in the future. Also the transport network to the airport (roads and rail) need to be improved drastically if they hope to attract new business

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Eminently sensible idea but I bet the airport spent many thousands of pounds on image or marketing consultants to come up with this.

I wish Bristol and Exeter airports in my part of the world would now get rid of 'International' from their titles. Always seems to me to be a dwarf pretending to be a giant but looking silly in the process.

 

[Em0866]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Well the amount of money that went into this exercise cost more than a pretty penny I suspect. I don't know why the brought in "international" into the name in the first place. I have been past Norwich "international" Airport on many occasions and flew from there once back to CWL via Dublin with Air Wales. Well, no offence to anyone, but that terminal building is like a large shed! So I agree with you Local that smaller airports should leave the "I" word out. Perhaps there should be a system in place whereby you can only be called and international airport if you have more than X about of passengers a year, x amount of desitnations to x amount of countries outside of Europe and the med. Just an idea

 

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Well the amount of money that went into this exercise cost more than a pretty penny I suspect. I don't know why the brought in "international" into the name in the first place. I have been past Norwich "international" Airport on many occasions and flew from there once back to CWL via Dublin with Air Wales. Well, no offence to anyone, but that terminal building is like a large shed! So I agree with you Local that smaller airports should leave the "I" word out. Perhaps there should be a system in place whereby you can only be called and international airport if you have more than X about of passengers a year, x amount of desitnations to x amount of countries outside of Europe and the med. Just an idea

The word 'international' is always misinterpreted by many as meaning outside of Europe. (I thought most people in the UK were anti-European as a whole anyway? leasantry: ) As far as I am concerned the airport was using the term 'international' correctly. The airport had regular flights to outside the UK therefore it is an 'international' airport as opposed to a domestic airport. As for the larger airports with flights departing to outside the continent perhaps those airports should adopt the term 'intercontinental airport'. That would resolve the issue once and for all. Just a thought? :search:

 

[Em0866]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

That's a very good point Aviador, although again Intercontinental also has it's implications as last year you had flights to North America and Africa from CWL. Without sounding like an anorak, International to me means to other countries, which CWL had flights to mostly other European countries and outside too (Turkey, Egypt are the only examples I can think of from the top of my head). All in all though whether the name has International in it or not generally people will call it Cardiff airport anyway or more locally as Rhoose airport. It's more important now that the rebranding is done, to concentrate on trying to attract new airlines and routes in the long term. All seems quiet on FFB and no new updates since October 08, an update there is needed, even if they don't have much to say, better that than nothing at all.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

The key to keeping Cardiff Airport flying high

CARDIFF Airport’s terminal was becoming very tired looking and a facelift and a re- branding are to be welcomed – but it is only the start of a long-term process.

At the present time there is no connection between the Departure and Arrival Halls which doesn’t make efficient use of the building. The new building will link these two areas and create some useful space for retail and catering. This new space is expected to be completed in time to be used by visitors to the Ryder Cup in September 2010.

So will a rebranding and a few extra shops transform Cardiff Airport into the airport that Welsh passengers have demanded that it should be?

As they will not by themselves increase passenger numbers, it depends on whether this is the beginning of a process and not the end.

More than nearly every other airport in the UK, Cardiff Airport is dependent on charter airlines.

This has been a very profitable end of the business for airports and the high level of income from charter airlines makes it difficult for airports to accept the reduced level of income that the low-cost airlines are prepared to pay if they are going to use an airport.

For regional airports, high levels of charges are no longer achievable, the charter market is declining as passengers switch away from short-haul charter flights and onto low-cost airlines.

If it wasn’t bad enough that the well-paid end of the business is declining, the remaining charter airlines have seen the reduced charges offered by airports to the low-cost airlines and want similar low-cost deals.

So Cardiff Airport has to develop a strategy that allows it to prosper in an environment where income from airlines is declining and that process is for the long term and not just a short-term problem associated with the current economic difficulties.

Alternative areas of income come from the passengers themselves, to offer as many services as possible to persuade passengers to spend money on their short journey through the airport. Although this can lead to observations that airports are shopping centres with a runway attached, it will be crucial for the future profitability of the airport to have the appropriate retail and catering outlets.

This isn’t so attractive for the airlines who would want us to keep our wallets closed while passing through the airport and spend money once we get onto the aircraft. Airlines would rather have an airport that is efficient air-side rather than have a shiny new frontage and branding land-side. Airline efficiency depends on keeping an aircraft on the ground for the shortest possible time and, to achieve that, passengers have to be loaded and unloaded as efficiently as possible. Above everything else, passengers have to be seated on the aircraft in time for departure.

At the present time there are land-side shopping and catering outlets on the first floor of the terminal building that have the effect of diverting passengers between check-in and passing through the security point to the departure lounge.

Moving some retail onto the ground floor of the terminal will enable the airport at some point in the future to extend the departure lounge to incorporate most of the first floor of the building and take the bulk of the shopping and catering air-side rather than land side.

There is no doubt that the intended audience for these changes are not the two million passengers that pass through the airport every year, but a handful of airline executives who decide where new routes are going to be developed.

They need to be convinced that there is a unique air transport market in Wales that shouldn’t be served by airports in England.

While Flybe and bmibaby offer a good service to domestic destinations and bmibaby and the charter airlines to the holiday destinations of southern Europe, what shouldn’t be overlooked is the opportunity to attract visitors to Wales by air from northern Europe. There is also a need to connect with another international hub to attract worldwide visitors and offer an alternative to KLM’s Amsterdam service.

The marketing for such routes needs to be focused not in Wales but at the other end of the route, an area where airlines would welcome support from Visit Wales.

Martin Evans is External Research Fellow in the Wales Transport Research Centre at the University of Glamorgan

Source

 

[Em0866]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

I read this article and thought it was a very good piece by Martin Evans. Lets hope that the airport take on board Mr Evans' comments for future development

 

[Em0866]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

it doesn't on the tabs but it does on the side

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Steve Hodgetts, Cardiff Airport's business development director, believes that more people will use the airport as the number of flights increase.

I think that's stating the blindingly obvious.

The suggestion appears to be that this is to be public money or am I reading it wrongly?

I have major reservations about using public money to help commercial organisations, no matter how laudable it may seem. It can have unforeseen effects and can artificially skew markets.

I'm also not convinced about the idea of promoting CWL's 'Welshness'. It might have an attraction for some inbound travellers and locals but to really make progress CWL needs to grab significant passenger numbers from beyond its core catchment, ie from the West of England and South Midlands. These people won't care a tin whistle about Welshness, only cost of the journey, destination, ease of reaching the airport and sometimes a suitable time or date of flight.

At the risk of repetition, I believe strongly that CWL's best chance of kicking forward in the next few years is if BRS is denied further expansion by the planners. BRS will then be effectively capped at around 8mppa.

The residue of the 10-12 mppa that airport is looking to will then have to look elsewhere for their flights.

The time scale is at least ten years and in the current environment no-one knows what the markets will be like in ten years' time anyway.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

I note that on the Bristol Evening Post website ('This Is Bristol') Thomson are advertising flights from Cardiff. No mention of flights from Bristol even though the destinations served are broadly similar.

Thomson did this sort of thing a couple of years ago when a lot of Bristol buses were covered in advertisements for their flights from CWL with, again, no mention of Bristol.

I post this because I have read about easyJet advertising in South Wales and it shows it is not all one way and that Thomson, if not the CWL management, is trying to get passengers from the Bristol area to use its flights from South Wales even though, paradoxically, it might mean diluting its own Bristol routes.

 

[Em0866]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Yes this seems really daft, and no real thought. I kow here in Cardiff they advertise flights with easyjet, ryanair and continental (the latter I can sort of understand) but the rest is just bonkers!!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

On the face of it the move does seem questionable but I can't help thinking that the executives and marketing people can't all be daft and there must be a valid reason. Trouble is I can't think what it might be.

Well, I can actually with the bus adverts a couple of years ago. TOM was separate from First Choice then of course and although TOM operated from Bristol their Cardiff base was bigger and they had just started on their multi-weekly flights to the Costas and other popular sun spots.

It was almost becoming First Choice at Bristol and Thomson at Cardiff. It may be that had the companies not amalgamated Cardiff would have been built up even more by Thomson with Bristol diminishing. So the adverts then would have made sense.

Now they are all one company and any logic is difficult to find.

 

[Em0866]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Executives don't always follow logic, so it appears, or it is sadly lacking. That is my only conclusion LOL

 

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Maybe this is a case of the airlines trying to play one airport off against another? KLM have recently done the same up here advertising the KLM route from Humberside in the Leeds area. Has the frequency of any of the routes changes at either airport? Maybe Cardiff airport is offering a better deal now?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Two seconds from disaster: Red Arrows come within 900 feet of BMI passenger jet after air traffic blunder

A Red Arrows display team and a passenger jet packed full of holidaymakers came less than two seconds away from disaster during a heart-stopping near-miss in overcast skies

It was only a lucky break in cloud cover that meant the air acrobatics squadron were able to spot the Boeing 737 and pull off a startling evasive manoeuvre to avoid catastrophe.

The near-miss that saw a team of nine Hawk jets come within just 270m (900ft) of a passenger plane on its way back from Spain - at full capacity the BMI Baby 737 can carry up to 158 passengers.

The Hawks had been performing in Weston-super-Mare and were on their way back to Bristol Airport when planes came terrifyingly close.

The B737 was cruising at 2,500ft on its way to Cardiff the when the Red Arrows were instructed by Air Traffic Control to climb to the exact same height so they could be picked up on the radar system

Investigators have since blamed the incident on air traffic controllers in Cardiff, who failed to inform colleagues in Bristol that the passenger jet was due to cross their airspace.

As a result, controllers at Bristol International Airport unwittingly advised the Hawk pilots climb into the path of the Boeing 737.

The nine jets had separated into three groups of three planes with the lead pilot in the first group communicating with controllers

Luckily he spotted the passenger jet through the clouds and managed to avoid a disaster. He later told investigators that had he not had a chance sighting on the plane 'the risk of collision would have been extremely high'.

The team 'levelled off' at 1,500ft and watched as the jet came within whisker - 900ft (270m) vertically and 0.7 miles horizontally - of a crash.

Reporting its findings into the incident, the UK Airprox board praised the actions of the Hawk pilots for averting a tragedy.

It stated: 'Fortunately, after commencing climb the Hawk lead had seen the B737 and had immediately levelled off at 1,500ft and informed air traffic control of the potential collision.’

'These timely actions left the board in no doubt that any risk of collision had been quickly and effectively removed.' The near miss happened as the team performed above Weston on August 9 last year in the wake of the devastating fire which destroyed the Grand Pier.

The Red Arrows had been advised by Bristol Approach Radar Control (APR) to ascend to 2,500ft to improve radar contact which had been affected by poor weather.

Bristol Air Traffic Control said it was not aware of the Boeing, which was under the direction of Cardiff Air control where it was due to land.

The pilot of the B737 said in the report that at no point were the Hawks close enough to 'cause concern' to his passenger plane.He added: 'Under the positive control from Cardiff and complying with instruction, they thought no more of it.'

But the UK Airprox board - which is funded by the Ministry of Defence and the Civil Aviation Authority - laid the blame with controllers in Cardiff.

Aviation expert David Kaminski explained that problems had occurred because the aircrafts were under the guidance of two different air traffic control areas.

'This incident took place on the boarders of two different air spaces and the weather was also quite bad.'

He added: 'I think the pilot in the Hawk got quite a shock, but the report says there was no real danger.'

The Airprox report it stated:'At the time of the first call, the formation was outside Bristol radar cover, the NATS advisor commenting that without radar contact at Bristol, the APR was reliant on position reports from the Hawk formation.’

'Member acknowledged this comment and agreed with the ATSI statement that Cardiff could have afforded the formation a better service owing to better low-level radar coverage in the Bristol Channel.'

An MoD spokesman said: 'Lessons identified within the detailed report have been highlighted to all Royal Air Force aerobatics team pilots.Safety is of primary concern to the Red Arrows in all aspects of aviation.’
The timely actions of the pilots concerned left the board in no doubt that any risk of collision had been quickly and effectively avoided.'

As a result of the investigation the Airprox board gave the incident a C rating, out of an A-D grading, with A being the most serious. link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... under.html

Isn’t this the worst type of gutter press scare mongering? Two seconds from disaster! I’ve retained the newspaper heading for its ‘story’.

The hack can’t even get the seating capacity of the baby 737s correct - up to 158 passengers! And she tells us the 737 was 'cruising at 2,500 feet' when it was obviously nearing the final stages of its landing approach.

An airline captain, commenting in the message board section of this newspaper web report, sums it up when he says this was a category C, an event but nearly a non-event.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Green army prepares for march on Cardiff

Irish rugby fans are today taking to the air and sea as they travel to Cardiff more in expectation than hope that Ireland can secure its first Grand Slam since 1948.

Airlines and ferry companies have reported busy bookings in the run-up to Saturday's game, and extra services have been introduced to meet demand.

Nigel Tilson of Stena Line said the company's ferries to Wales were booked "chock-a-block" with rugby fans. The company's sailing at 9am tomorrow from Rosslare to Fishguard is booked out, as is a 9.15pm sailing on Saturday. Stena expects to carry at least 7,000 rugby fans to the game.

A spokeswoman for Irish Ferries said passenger numbers were "very substantially up" in the run-up to the weekend, with traffic running at four to five times normal levels. She said ships making the crossing to Wales were being decorated in a rugby theme, with live music to entertain fans.

At Dublin airport, 14 flights will be taking off to Cardiff tomorrow and tomorrow, carrying 1,500 people. Aer Lingus is operating a number of one-off flights on Friday and Saturday morning at 10.30am and from Cardiff on Saturday (22.20pm).

The airline said there were still some seats available on tomorrow's flight and the flight returning on Sunday evening.

At Shannon airport, which has no scheduled flights to Cardiff, bookings were heavy for flights to UK cities such as Bristol, Birmingham, and Manchester. A spokeswoman at Shannon noted Cardiff has a small airport that can struggle to cope with major events.

Ryanair will operate an extra flight from Shannon to Bristol that leaves 7.15pm on Friday and departs from Cardiff on Sunday at 3.05pm. The carrier said all its other Bristol flights were fully booked.

Two extra Aer Arann flights will operate from Cork airport, while at Belfast International Airport, BMI Baby has laid on five extra flights between Belfast and Cardiff.

link: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... king52.htm

A busy weekend in prospect at the newly-named Cardiff Airport.