Cardiff Airport - General Thread

[TheLocalYokel]

Poor old Bristol Airport is once again blamed for CWL's ills. Some bitterness in some of the public comments and I smiled wryly to myself at the one that says the Tories help 'Conservative Bristol'. Bristol City Council has not been Conservative-controlled since probably the 1960s when the Tories in the city used to masquerade under the Citizen Party title. Until the Greens made inroads at this years's local elections Labour comfortably held power. Furthermore, the city's elected mayor is Labour as is the newly-elected West of England Combined Authority mayor part of whose remit covers Bristol.

On top of that the city's four MPs are all Labour.

Just shows how entrenched views and sentiment can get in the way of facts.

Even the despised (amongst some section of CWL followers) Conservative and former minister Liam Fox who is the MP for the area of North Somerset that covers the airport has changed his mind and is now against further BRS expansion.

If the Conservatives were that much in love with Bristol they would not have axed rail electrification to the city for starters.

As for selling the airport to the private sector, now is certainly not the time given the state the industry is in because of Covid.

 

[Jerry]

Some bitterness in some of the public comments and I smiled wryly to myself at the one that says the Tories help 'Conservative Bristol'.

The readers of NationCymru are very much more of a nationalist leaning than say WalesOnline. There is very much a belief that the Conservative government in Westminster favours Bristol Airport over Cardiff Airport because of the refusal to devolve APD even if the Bristol area itself tends to vote more like Wales in voting for left wing/left-centre parties.

As for selling the airport to the private sector, now is certainly not the time given the state the industry is in because of Covid.

It's not realistically going to happen anytime soon or ever and to me it's also a big assumption that a private company would do any better than the government owned company or that the government wouldn't still have to support the airport even if it didn't own it.

 

[Jerry]

Duty free store operator Dufry has renewed their contract with Cardiff Airport for the next 12 years.

Cardiff Airport - Complaints Policy & Procedure – CWL

The official Cardiff Airport website for live flight information, news, airport parking, offers, booking flights & holidays.

www.cardiff-airport.com

 

[Jerry]

So far this is what they airlines will be offering during winter 2021/22 from Cardiff. I've used the first week of December. It's in weekly departures.
Loganair
Edinburgh 4 weekly
Eastern Airways
Anglesey 10 weekly
Belfast City 6 weekly
KLM
Amsterdam 20 weekly
Vueling
Alicante 2 weekly
Malaga 2 weekly
Ryanair
Dublin 4 weekly
TUI
Lanzarote 2 weekly
Malaga 1 weekly
Alicante 2 weekly
Gran Canaria 1 weekly
Tenerife 3 weekly
In total that's 57 weekly departures and 5693 departing seats.

 

[geoff]

It will be a great boost after last winter, if they all operate.

 

[aviatorconcorde]

Protest outside the Senedd today surrounding model farm - many pressure group as well as representives from the green party and plaid Cymru in attendance.

 

[Jerry]

It will be a great boost after last winter, if they all operate.

Well hopefully they will. The one i have the most doubt about is the frequency of KLM, they rely a lot on long haul travel so we may not see 20 weekly flights from them.

 

[Jerry]

Protest outside the Senedd today surrounding model farm - many pressure group as well as representives from the green party and plaid Cymru in attendance.

It's odd to see the Conservatives, Plaid Cymru and Green Party agreeing on something!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

So far this is what they airlines will be offering during winter 2021/22 from Cardiff. I've used the first week of December. It's in weekly departures.
Loganair
Edinburgh 4 weekly
Eastern Airways
Anglesey 10 weekly
Belfast City 6 weekly
KLM
Amsterdam 20 weekly
Vueling
Alicante 2 weekly
Malaga 2 weekly
Ryanair
Dublin 4 weekly
TUI
Lanzarote 2 weekly
Malaga 1 weekly
Alicante 2 weekly
Gran Canaria 1 weekly
Tenerife 3 weekly
In total that's 57 weekly departures and 5693 departing seats.

In an idle moment I looked at a week in November 2019 (the third week in the month) and found there were 117 departures that week - my thanks and acknowledgement to the South Wales Aviation Group's website records.

Given that Flybe was responsible for a fair proportion of those departures in 2019 and Qatar probably won't be back this winter, plus the fallout from the pandemic, it means that if the airport can come close to 57 weekly departures this winter it will be a good effort.

 

[Jerry]

Given that Flybe was responsible for a fair proportion of those departures in 2019 and Qatar probably won't be back this winter,

I believe that Flybe at their peak was responsible for roughly 60 departures a week so were a big loss in weekly departures and routes.

 

[aviatorconcorde]

It's odd to see the Conservatives, Plaid Cymru and Green Party agreeing on something!

The climate emergency is a global problem and it’s good all areas of the political spectrum are onboard with it.

 

[Jerry]

The climate emergency is a global problem and it’s good all areas of the political spectrum are onboard with it.

I think the surprising thing for me is that the Conservatives who brand themselves the party of business are against a business park being built especially one which could have a benefit for Cardiff Airport a place that although they are often negative against they say they want to succeed but i suspect they probably can't been seen to side with Labour on this and get to promote their environmental credentials with this issue. Will it reverse the decision? I'd be surprised if it did and even if the business park gets stopped or delayed it's still not guaranteed the farm will be saved as Legal and General will still own the land and may well appeal or find another use for it to make their investment back. It would be interesting to know which company they have lined up to sell it too and how that will benefit Cardiff Airport. Fingers crossed it'll help air cargo wise ie via an Amazon depot or something similar.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

As I understand it the local authority approved the planning application by Legal and General. In England there is no third party right of appeal against the decision of a local authority planning committee. Any aggrieved third party can only seek a judicial review in the High Court into the lawfulness of the determination process, not the decision itself. I believe a similar system is in place in Wales.

 

[aviatorconcorde]

As I understand it the local authority approved the planning application by Legal and General. In England there is no third party right of appeal against the decision of a local authority planning committee. Any aggrieved third party can only seek a judicial review in the High Court into the lawfulness of the determination process, not the decision itself. I believe a similar system is in place in Wales.

i may be wrong but as we share a legal system, this would be the same in Wales.

It’s sad as we are in a climate emergency and we should be doing everything we can to save the planet. Therefore this land should be preserved, i’d rather see a family farm there than an amazon warehouse exploiting cheap labour.

 

[Jerry]

i may be wrong but as we share a legal system, this would be the same in Wales.

It’s sad as we are in a climate emergency and we should be doing everything we can to save the planet. Therefore this land should be preserved, i’d rather see a family farm there than an amazon warehouse exploiting cheap labour.

I suppose the question is though do we stop all economic development because of it? Do we shut down place's like Cardiff Airport or not try and grow the economy in it's area to help it grow? Do we not try and create jobs for people in certain areas because of climate change?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

i may be wrong but as we share a legal system, this would be the same in Wales.

England and Wales do have a shared legal system as you point out (unlike in Scotland), but as we've seen with the response to the pandemic the Welsh Government has some powers devolved to it under which it can adopt different procedures and regulations from those in England.

The Planning Inspectorate for England and Wales has a separate headquarters for Welsh matters based in Cardiff (the English one is in Bristol).

However, a couple of years ago the Welsh Government expressed its intention of setting up its own planning inspectorate 'in order to meet the unique needs of communities and businesses in Wales'. I wasn't sure whether this plan had come to fruition and if it had whether procedures had altered in Wales as a result. However, it seems that the separate inspectorate has not yet been brought into being.

 

[aviatorconcorde]

I suppose the question is though do we stop all economic development because of it? Do we shut down place's like Cardiff Airport or not try and grow the economy in it's area to help it grow? Do we not try and create jobs for people in certain areas because of climate change?

We should not stop all economic development but it does need to be controlled - the climate emergency is the biggest threat we have perhaps ever faced and we cannot return to the pre-covid way of doing things.

Wales is in the last chance saloon on climate change. Green spaces and fields should be preserved at all costs, for the sake of our emissions as well as all the wildlife who live at model farm.

I am sure a suitable brownfield site could be found. The airport will do just fine without this new industrial estate but we all need to fly less as well as reducing the things we send via air cargo - it is one of the most polluting things to do.

 

[Jerry]

We should not stop all economic development but it does need to be controlled - the climate emergency is the biggest threat we have perhaps ever faced and we cannot return to the pre-covid way of doing things.

Wales is in the last chance saloon on climate change. Green spaces and fields should be preserved at all costs, for the sake of our emissions as well as all the wildlife who live at model farm.

I am sure a suitable brownfield site could be found. The airport will do just fine without this new industrial estate but we all need to fly less as well as reducing the things we send via air cargo - it is one of the most polluting things to do.

For all that to happen mankind would have to literally change the whole way society operates. We're now a click and deliver to doorstep society so we'll see an increase in demand for warehousing for that and air cargo to sustain it (hopefully with air cargo routes at Cardiff), we've still yet to see China catch up with the west yet alone Africa. I generally don't see mankind changing habits like wanting to fly on holiday if people have money in their pockets. We'll have to adapt to a hotter drier planet and create defences to stop land being submerged due to rising seas.

 

[aviatorconcorde]

For all that to happen mankind would have to literally change the whole way society operates. We're now a click and deliver to doorstep society so we'll see an increase in demand for warehousing for that and air cargo to sustain it (hopefully with air cargo routes at Cardiff), we've still yet to see China catch up with the west yet alone Africa. I generally don't see mankind changing habits like wanting to fly on holiday if people have money in their pockets. We'll have to adapt to a hotter drier planet and create defences to stop land being submerged due to rising seas.

If we carried on with this attitude we certainly will be heading for disaster.

We will have to fly less in the future for sure, hopefully we’ll see further increases in air passenger duty to encourage this. Our home economy also benefits more when we staycation and it puts more money into the pocket of local and small businesses.

We will also need to start driving electric cars, cycling and walk more rather than polluting through the car or diesel engines. But in this case, we also need to preserve our green spaces, which is why model farm should not be paved over. Amazon also needs to be stopped exploiting workers which is why I hope they do not end up at this new site.

There is still time to save the planet, the welsh government has declared a climate emergency, we can all do our bit.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

What happens if the major nations of the world, especially the new economic powers such as China and India (who both plan many new airports in the coming years), decide to go their own way and largely ignore the climate change lobby? Would a token effort by tiny Britain really make much difference?

If air travel is diminished in future perhaps in part by increases in fares including higher taxation on tickets, won't we return to the situation of half a century ago when only the wealthy could afford to fly regularly?

You paint a picture of a declining aviation industry which directly and indirectly would lead to the loss of many jobs. We could even reach a point where there are only a handful of what might be considered strategic airports around the UK, and Cardiff might not be one of them. People in South West Britain might have to travel to London or Birmingham to catch one of the few flights (compared with pre-pandemic) that operate - assuming they could afford the fare.

Over a decade ago a suggestion was made by a group of serious aviation researchers that Britain needed only eight airports, and CWL wasn't one of them. A greatly reduced aviation industry might well see something like that come about.

I shan't be here to see that so have no personal axe to grind, but my children and grandchildren and their issue will be and I am concerned for them. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is a real danger when it comes to addressing climate change.