Cardiff: (CWL) - General Thread

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Jerry
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Summer 2019 Update
As we coming into December i thought i'd make a list of the routes that will be operated from CWL their weekly departures frequency in
August and the airlines operating them and whether t
Jerry I have missed the summer some where lol.
 
superking said:
Jerry
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22 minutes ago
Moderator New #1,576



Summer 2019 Update
As we coming into December i thought i'd make a list of the routes that will be operated from CWL their weekly departures frequency in
August and the airlines operating them and whether t
Jerry I have missed the summer some where lol.
Click to expand...
Old posts that i'm updating but have a discrepancy of 2 flights a week for some reason.
 
Last edited:
I was only able to watch a little bit at the end but what I did find interesting is that when the Welsh minister was asked why the UK government hadn't devolved APD she said in their discussions the UK government always seemed to refer back to the York Aviation report which was commissioned by Bristol rather than look to commission their own report like they will do with short haul devolution to Northern Ireland.
 
Interesting watch....

Reports

The discussion centred around the 2 different reports. The CWL report was independently reviewed yet the BRS York report wasn't. There were differences in catchment area where questions against the BRS report accuracy were raised, mainly to do with catchment. BRS claim 1.8m Welsh use BRS yet CWL claim it's closer to 1.2m. CWL claim it will benefit CWL to a maximum of 600k passengers by 2025.

Carbon Emissions

It was discussed that increasing flights from CWL will increase Wales' contribution to Carbon Emissions. However it was also argued that it would reduce journeys over the bridge to BRS, many of which often bypass CWL (From the West) although people travelling from the East of Wales would simply redirect those similar length journeys to CWL, but not reduce emissions.
I think the argument was focussed on journeys to BRS, when in fact there would also be a large number of people travelling further to BHX and LON airports, so would significantly reduce long journeys to be retained to the closer journey to CWL.

Long Haul

Debra's argument focused on LH flights also discussed freight at length. BRS is not a freight handling Airport, so freight would be travelling further afield, thus reducing road freight emissions.
It was discussed about runway performance and BRS argued the case that modern aircraft perform longer journeys from BRS' runway, namely as far as Mexico. What wasn't discussed is that CUN hasn't seen 100% performance of direct flights, with a number going via MAN and also that the CUN flight capacity can be capped due to weight restrictions.

Wales Regions

It is worth noting that one minister had strong arguments that scrapping APD would only really benefit South Wales, as people in mid and North Wales would still need to use BHX, MAN and LPL and still have to pay APD from those Airports. One thing Debra did note is that scrapping APD isn't an absolute certainty that flight prices would come down for passengers. What it would do is make routes more profitable and viable for Airlines if they take that extra fare. Therefore, could a refund of APD be given to Airlines where passengers originate from Wales? This could be a very messy process, but it's something the passenger wouldn't be involved in. The Airline would need to produce accurate data to prove the passenger has originated from Wales. That could mean an even playing field, where CWL gains from Airline routes, but English Airports don't lose out. This would obviously increase the cost for the WG of scrapping APD, but in the long run more Welsh would fly from Wales anyway.

History

I think the argument really is split in two. There's the competitive, business argument that should be a level playing field, but on the other side there's the economic benefit of Wales.
Wales has its own Assembly that should have Wales as it's priority. More flights from Cardiff means better connectivity, more jobs at the Airport and as a result of the Airport (Suppliers/Tourism/Business etc).
CWL severly lost out due to it's mismanagement at the end of the last decade. BRS took advantage of that and performed exceptionally to build what it has today. That is simple business which you could say the WG shouldn't get involved in.

Catchment

This is mainly about leakage of Welsh passengers to English Airports. Not CWL regaining those Welsh travellers but also stealing English passengers from English Airports. The main reason Welsh people fly from English Airports is choice/availability, but mostly price. CWL doesn't have the choice of other Airports, or the Airlines prepared to offer competitive pricing (to the degree that CWL has the potential). English people will always have the choice and price factor because of the Airlines they have and the prices on offer. CWL is not looking for Airlines to undercut those prices as those are mainly driven by EZY/FR/Jet2 etc which are already setup in nearby English Airports.

Flight Options

I think the realistic view on this is that if APD were devolved, any Airline that would setup as a result of it being scrapped will offer increases of the key profitable and popular routes that are already at CWL and potentially a smaller number of routes on top of that to key destinations. BRS/BHX/MAN have a massive number of destinations that I think still wouldn't work from CWL. So although there's the argument of 1.2-1.8m passengers use BRS, it's unlikely that 100% of those people will switch to using CWL. An example of that is that KL also see's a lot of Welsh passengers using BRS, despite there being 3-4 flights a day from CWL. There will always be leakage to other Airports, so it would be interesting to see how many people use routes from BRS et all on routes that would never even be viable from CWL. Again, I think more research needs to be done on leakage as a whole to other Airports. I'm sure there would be many using BHX/MAN/LON airports from South Wales. If Debra's view that CWL would see an increase max 600k, I doubt that all 600k would be from BRS. You could argue that 75% might be using BRS which would mean 450k of those 600k would actually be using BRS, which is only a quarter of what BRS claim they could potentially use!
 
Foxlimayankee said:
Interesting watch....

Reports

The discussion centred around the 2 different reports. The CWL report was independently reviewed yet the BRS York report wasn't. There were differences in catchment area where questions against the BRS report accuracy were raised, mainly to do with catchment. BRS claim 1.8m Welsh use BRS yet CWL claim it's closer to 1.2m. CWL claim it will benefit CWL to a maximum of 600k passengers by 2025.

Carbon Emissions

It was discussed that increasing flights from CWL will increase Wales' contribution to Carbon Emissions. However it was also argued that it would reduce journeys over the bridge to BRS, many of which often bypass CWL (From the West) although people travelling from the East of Wales would simply redirect those similar length journeys to CWL, but not reduce emissions.
I think the argument was focussed on journeys to BRS, when in fact there would also be a large number of people travelling further to BHX and LON airports, so would significantly reduce long journeys to be retained to the closer journey to CWL.

Long Haul

Debra's argument focused on LH flights also discussed freight at length. BRS is not a freight handling Airport, so freight would be travelling further afield, thus reducing road freight emissions.
It was discussed about runway performance and BRS argued the case that modern aircraft perform longer journeys from BRS' runway, namely as far as Mexico. What wasn't discussed is that CUN hasn't seen 100% performance of direct flights, with a number going via MAN and also that the CUN flight capacity can be capped due to weight restrictions.

Wales Regions

It is worth noting that one minister had strong arguments that scrapping APD would only really benefit South Wales, as people in mid and North Wales would still need to use BHX, MAN and LPL and still have to pay APD from those Airports. One thing Debra did note is that scrapping APD isn't an absolute certainty that flight prices would come down for passengers. What it would do is make routes more profitable and viable for Airlines if they take that extra fare. Therefore, could a refund of APD be given to Airlines where passengers originate from Wales? This could be a very messy process, but it's something the passenger wouldn't be involved in. The Airline would need to produce accurate data to prove the passenger has originated from Wales. That could mean an even playing field, where CWL gains from Airline routes, but English Airports don't lose out. This would obviously increase the cost for the WG of scrapping APD, but in the long run more Welsh would fly from Wales anyway.

History

I think the argument really is split in two. There's the competitive, business argument that should be a level playing field, but on the other side there's the economic benefit of Wales.
Wales has its own Assembly that should have Wales as it's priority. More flights from Cardiff means better connectivity, more jobs at the Airport and as a result of the Airport (Suppliers/Tourism/Business etc).
CWL severly lost out due to it's mismanagement at the end of the last decade. BRS took advantage of that and performed exceptionally to build what it has today. That is simple business which you could say the WG shouldn't get involved in.

Catchment

This is mainly about leakage of Welsh passengers to English Airports. Not CWL regaining those Welsh travellers but also stealing English passengers from English Airports. The main reason Welsh people fly from English Airports is choice/availability, but mostly price. CWL doesn't have the choice of other Airports, or the Airlines prepared to offer competitive pricing (to the degree that CWL has the potential). English people will always have the choice and price factor because of the Airlines they have and the prices on offer. CWL is not looking for Airlines to undercut those prices as those are mainly driven by EZY/FR/Jet2 etc which are already setup in nearby English Airports.

Flight Options

I think the realistic view on this is that if APD were devolved, any Airline that would setup as a result of it being scrapped will offer increases of the key profitable and popular routes that are already at CWL and potentially a smaller number of routes on top of that to key destinations. BRS/BHX/MAN have a massive number of destinations that I think still wouldn't work from CWL. So although there's the argument of 1.2-1.8m passengers use BRS, it's unlikely that 100% of those people will switch to using CWL. An example of that is that KL also see's a lot of Welsh passengers using BRS, despite there being 3-4 flights a day from CWL. There will always be leakage to other Airports, so it would be interesting to see how many people use routes from BRS et all on routes that would never even be viable from CWL. Again, I think more research needs to be done on leakage as a whole to other Airports. I'm sure there would be many using BHX/MAN/LON airports from South Wales. If Debra's view that CWL would see an increase max 600k, I doubt that all 600k would be from BRS. You could argue that 75% might be using BRS which would mean 450k of those 600k would actually be using BRS, which is only a quarter of what BRS claim they could potentially use!
Click to expand...

I watched a recording of today’s session. Your summary is comprehensive and entirely brings out the flavour of the session. Many thanks for that. I was impressed by the CWL CEO’s performance.

The first part took evidence from the CEOs of CWL and BRS and the corporate affairs director of the Manchester Airports Group, with the second part focused on input from the Welsh Government’s minister of finance and two WG senior officials.

I noted the finance minister’s statement that abolition of APD is not a foregone conclusion if the tax is devolved . There would be a wide-ranging consultation on various aspects including environmental before a final decision was taken as to the way forward. This seems to be a different emphasis to that espoused by the previous first minister who stated that APD would be abolished.

There seemed to be some confusion, not picked up by the committee, about the amount of APD that CWL currently raises. The airport CEO said £14.5 million per year but later the finance minister said the sum was £6 million. I believe that £6 million was mentioned in an earlier committee session yet Ryanair mentioned (I think) £12 million in an earlier submission. It’s important because it’s the sum that would be deducted from the Westminster block grant to the WG if APD is devolved.

One or two interesting titbits emerged. The CWL CEO stated that Willie Walsh had said that if APD was removed Cardiff would be one of IAG’s target airports for their low-cost long haul airline, Level. She also said that some of the main reasons for Qatar choosing CWL (over BRS) were the runway length and the freight provision. Qatar also felt that the BRS catchment was more in the shadow of Heathrow and Gatwick.

The BRS CEO said that one of the airlines serving his airport had told him that if there was no APD at CWL it would move some capacity from there to CWL. He also repeated Ryanair’s public utterance of 2015 that BRS would suffer if Wales abolished APD.

It became tiresome again, as it did in a previous session some weeks ago, with both CWL and BRS arguing that “my report is better than yours” (Northpoint and York). If an in-depth report is really going to be a clincher then, as Jerry suggests, one should be carried out by a body completely independent of the two airports and their owners.

Surprisingly, the BRS CEO did not bring up the subject of APD on long haul via hub airports, with KLM and AMS very important to BRS. Abolition of the tax would make CWL far more attractive to a hub airline even if, as the CWL CEO suggested, it might not mean cheaper fares (with the airline pocketing the APD equivalent) but would improve yields significantly and in the long run could well lead to more services because they would become viable. I’m not sure if the committee is even aware that long haul APD is charged on hub long haul routes.

Another recurring theme in the second part of the session was connectivity to Wales, with 80% of the country’s trade (it was said by the WG representatives) being with England, hence the wish to explore PSO routes to a number of English key cities. What wasn’t mentioned or asked was the fact that someone like Ryanair (almost certainly an airline that increase its presence at CWL if there was no APD) would be flying primarily on leisure routes which would not benefit Wales as a country.

I’m not sure that the committee learned anything new of major substance from today’s session but it allowed another airing of the arguments.

Incidentally, I note that Jack Lopresti, Conservative MP for Filton and Bradley Stoke (on the northern edge of the Bristol boundary), is a member of the Welsh Affairs Committee. This being so it must be that the committee is not confined to MPs representing Welsh constituencies. All the other current members do so.
 
Thanks for the summary both of you! I haven't had time to watch the first part of the debate.
It has definitely kicked up a debate online with it even being on the TV news last night!
 
Well i've watched the first part of the commitee meeting with the airport reprensentatives. Definitely some interesting points made.

I think i can sum up the arguments, from Bristol and Manchester it seems that a lot of their argument is based on that they are already providing the connectivity for you so Wales doesn't need APD devolved to have it's own direct connectivity and that we benefit Wales economically already and nothing needs to change to upset that. Which is understandable in that they don't want the status quo to change. It is interesting that neither side can agree on how many passengers use BRS from South Wales, maybe they should have gone halfway and settled at 1.5 million!
Cardiff's main argument seems to be that they are hamstrung from providing Wales with better connections because they are smaller and that there costs are bigger and that there isn't a level playing field and that they want to provide Wales with the connections to Europe and the World and not have English airports do it.
Maybe i've simplified the arguments too much but that seems to be the basis of them to me.

Just another few things i picked up watching it, i noticed one of the first questions was to Debra Barber about the airports relationship with Flybe which she couldn't answer due to commercial confidentiality. Interestingly it was called a risk sharing joint venture between the airport and the airline.

Another point was the ammount of passengers using Cardiff from the south west and Debra Barber said it was under 100,000 passengers a year. On domestic routes she said they comprised 0.3% of the airports domestic passengers and on international routes 0.4% of the airports passengers.

I also wanted to mention what Dave Lees said about the airline he spoke to. He said that they would shift capacity but doesn't actually state how much capacity they'll shift.

It is definitely was an interesting watch! No doubt the debate will go on and even if the committee does recommend that APD be devolved there woul still be the hurdle of the UK government to get over. Maybe then they'll commision there own report!
 
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/wales-cardiff-airport-flights-duty-15940940

Is this statement in yesterday's newspaper recent or a rehash of older comments?

The UK Treasury has said it did not intend to devolve APD to Wales.

In a statement it has said: "The government remains concerned about the impact of any devolution to Wales on English airports, particular Bristol Airport which exists in a single aviation market with the largest commercial airport in Wales, Cardiff.

"... we do not believe that the devolution of APD to the Welsh Assembly is the right course of action."
 
So even if the Welsh Affairs committee suggests APD being devolved the UK government would refuse to devolve it to essentially in their words to protect Bristol airport and protect the English economy. The ironic thing about this is that the Chancellor recently said that the treasury will look into devolving short haul APD to Northern Ireland.
To me even though APD is only a minor thing it shows how little importance Wales is considered compared too Northern Ireland and Scotland.
 
Jerry said:
So even if the Welsh Affairs committee suggests APD being devolved the UK government would refuse to devolve it to essentially in their words to protect Bristol airport and protect the English economy. The ironic thing about this is that the Chancellor recently said that the treasury will look into devolving short haul APD to Northern Ireland.
To me even though APD is only a minor thing it shows how little importance Wales is considered compared too Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Click to expand...
It's really all down to politics, often party politics.

Scotland was given APD powers by the Cameron-led Coalition Government as part of a number of additional powers transferred to Edinburgh when it looked increasingly likely that the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum would result in a vote to leave the UK. It was a blatant attempt to influence the result. Cameron was desperate not to go down in history as the prime minister who presided over the break-up of the United Kingdom.

Northern Ireland is part of the perennial 'Irish Problem' and the UK government will invariably do what it thinks it takes to keep the lid on. The original Northern Ireland long haul APD reduction was to enable BFS to have a better chance of competing with DUB on the NYC route (EWR from BFS). It didn't work. Now that May's disastrous decision to call a snap general election in 2017 has left her government in hock to the DUP, she's virtually held to ransom when it comes to helping Northern Ireland economically.

Currently, Wales has no such bargaining power.
 
On the Vueling flight from Malaga yesterday, a passenger was overheard saying, “Only two planes here again. When we took the grandchildren to Tenerife at half term a lady in duty free said the landing charges are double those at Bristol and Birmingham. No wonder the airport is so quiet.” Is any truth in the quote or has the airport still more work to be done to improve it’s image?
 
Darby said:
Is any truth in the quote or has the airport still more work to be done to improve it’s image?
Click to expand...
It's a common myth that the airport has said isn't true. If it was then the airlines wouldn't be growing at CWL especially Ryanair! Unfortunately CWL seems to be stuck with this image of being expensive which i doesn't seem to be going away and i think the fact that CWL is a smaller airport and generally more quieter than bigger airports like BRS reinforces that in people's mind as they see in their view only 2 planes on the ground when they arrive/depart compared to the bigger BRS where it could be 8 to 10. It always seems to me that people have an unrealistic expectation of what the airport should be like from many people because of it's busier neighbour.
 
Sadly all the time this happens. Heard a woman on Monday complaining how the airport was so quite and there was no way there were 350 people there for her flight to Tenerife. She went on to tell her friend how good the Dreamliner was going to be. I can see when she get home she will tell everybody how she ended up on a crappy small plane when she flew from Cardiff.

Actually saw about 80 board the flight to Paris. Around 70 to Milan and my flight to Amsterdam had one empty seat.
 
I don't know why that person was expecting to fly on a Dreamliner on a short haul route from Cardiff?
For an airport of its size Cardiff has good route network and a good spread of airlines yet people don't seem to realise that and idk why seem to think it should be a mini Heathrow!
 
Jerry said:
I don't know why that person was expecting to fly on a Dreamliner on a short haul route from Cardiff?
For an airport of its size Cardiff has good route network and a good spread of airlines yet people don't seem to realise that and idk why seem to think it should be a mini Heathrow!
Click to expand...
I guess they see the adverts “fly tui on the dreamliner” and automatically think that’s what they will be on. If you have no interest in aviation then you won’t know what tui use.

I think it goes to show how people make up their minds without any facts.

This woman was saying how quite the airport was and how it’s getting less and less routes.

I don’t think I have ever seen a winter Monday morning that busy for a long time mind you.
 
Sounds like she wanted as many pas as poss to hear what she had to say,and lead into a argument.It tries to blank out people like that.
 
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