Cardiff Airport - General Thread

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Many thanks Peter and welcome to forums4airports.

You may have noticed that CWL is the second most popular airport on forums4airports (after LBA) which shows the amount of interest there is generally, confirmed by WAN already and for a long time by sites such as the Dried Plum.

I am a fairly senior member of society now (in age terms that is, been drawing my old age pension - not a politically correct term these days - for a few months) who has travelled a lot by air for well over thirty years.

These days I always use my local airport that happens to be Bristol (it's only fifteen minutes away) and I think I am a good example of why Cardiff needs to expand so that people in my position 'across the river' can benefit as I do.

I suppose any huge expansion at CWL might impact adversely on BRS (which might perhaps be a bit of a pain for the likes of me at times) but I am a firm believer in the market being the judge without artificial aid from government, whether local, national or European, and certainly not from quangos.

I read constantly that BRS only does so well because of the passenger numbers it enjoys from South Wales. I don't know the truth of it. BRS say around 10% of passengers emanate from the Principality but how accurate or up to date this figure is I have no idea.

I do wonder though whether some routes would be sustainable from both Bristol and Cardiff and that one of the reasons airlines opt for BRS is that its larger core catchment means it needs less 'topping up' from South Wales than would be the reverse case.

Finally, I think CWL should copy the BRS Flyer: regular journeys throughout the day - every 15 minutes from/to city centre and rail station to/from airport; through ticketing available on trains; BRS is shown as a FGW station in their booking system; the Flyer appears on the arrival/departure screens at Temple Meads Station.

I'm told it carries over 500,000 passengers a year. I'm not surprised because, though at certain times of day there seems an endless procession of these 50-seat coaches ambling round the central areas with not many passengers on board, there is invariably a queue of people waiting at Temple Meads for the next Flyer and on a number of occasions I've seen full coaches leave people behind to await the next one, which is not clever even if the next one is only 15 minutes away. This shows its popularity and I believe it's the next best thing to a rail connection which BRS will never get.

I don't know why CWL doesn't do something similar. BRS started the Flyer eight or nine years ago - at a time when their passenger throughput was little more than CWL's is now.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Peterp

Thank you for joining Forums4airports and hopefully you will be able to visit us from time to time.

I will add a direct link to WAN from the Cardiff Forum here. Once your admin have established a links page it would be great if you could offer a link back to Forums4airports.com.

I wish WAN all the best in achieving it's goal.

Aviador

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

CWL official website

On the home page of the CWL website near the top is a map showing that it is possible to fly from the airport in almost any direction.

The trouble is they've shown the airport situated in the south-east of England.

http://www.tbicardiffairport.com/en/#183

 

[Em0866]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

It's not very good that whoever designed the website doesn't know the location of Cardiff airport and the further West you can fly to is Cork. Who checked this stuff before it was published? A major faux pas if you ask me LOL!!

 

[mathers_wales_uk]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

I believe it was taken from the Luton airport website which are owned by the same company. Probably took it straight off it following a similar layout,

Obviously not a proffesional job at all.

 

[welshguy39]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

anyone got any thoughts on ryanair cwl for one of the top uk citys and they dont fly into

FR is set to open one new base in Britain — housing up to three aircraft — by the end of October.
O'Leary said yesterday that the company is considering three airports for the new base and could be in a position to make a further announcement within the next fortnight, with the new hub possibly being operational by the end of October. Mr O’Leary said that Ryanair currently flies to two of the three airports being considered. It would bring to 34 the number of European hubs, Ryanair operates

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

I mentioned this on Friday in the Worldwide Airlines Section under Ryanair and suggested the amateur (and professional?) tipsters were suggesting that MAN, LBA and NCL were the airports already flown to and GLA and CWL the ones not currently served.

Everyone seems to have their own ideas.

I find Ryanair impossible to guess because they keep changing their stories about most things. Only a few weeks ago they were saying there would be no expansion in the UK because of the government's aviation tax, now they are talking about opening a new base here.

There is not much doubt they will go to the airport offering them the best package so long as they feel the airport itself is viable, and presumably they would not be talking to any airport that wasn't. It's also probably to do with Ryanair's bargaining strategy - putting a bit of public pressure on the airports involved to give MOL's lot an even better deal.

Some say CWL is a non-runner because BRS is so close. I don't agree. Remember, Ryanair have a small base at BOH whose outer catchment coincides with parts of BRS's outer catchment.

If they wanted to Ryanair could simply get on to the all the sun routes that baby operates. Their muscle would soon see to baby and the airport might view Ryanair as a better option because baby has frankly been a great disappointment and no-one knows their future under LH.

Ryanair could also steer clear of their own BRS routes but might think it great fun to take on some of easy's BRS routes from CWL.

Three aircraft might be a lot to start at CWL, especially in winter, but the report actually says 'up to three aircraft'.

In summary, I have no idea where they will go and nothing will surprise me.

 

[Em0866]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Similarly to Local, I won't be surprised if they but equally the same if they don't. MO'L is very unpredictable but who knows. We'll find out soon enough in the next couple of weeks. We could speculate til the cows come home and weigh up the pros and cons, but we could be here for a month of Sundays and still get it wrong!

 

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Unpredictable MOL certainly is. Only he knows where his next UK base will be.

On another note. With regret I have had to remove the link from here to the newly founded Wales site. Unfortunately that site now requires all members to register and so renders the link back to Forums4airports as useless.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank those members who have stuck with us here at Forums4airports, the UK's only dedicated forum supporting the development of ALL UK airports.

 

[Em0866]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

That's a shame, but I will still post on here as well as WAN. I think it's important to contribute to both

 

[mathers_wales_uk]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Good News

W.A.N. has removed sign-up to view the website. This was only done as a trial to see if it would impact the number of people visiting the site that were not interested on the concpet but keeping an eye on what we were doing.

Regards

mathers

 

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

[textarea]Why Wales can and must be linked by rail to Heathrow

With concerns over global warming and car use high on the political agenda it is time for a direct rail link to be built between Wales and Heathrow, argues Tony Lodge of centre-right think-tank Bow Group

WHEN thoughts turn to the Kings and the Castles locomotives hauling the famous heyday trains from Paddington to Wales and western England in their distinctive coffee and cream liveries, it is easy to grow nostalgic – but these are understandably held up as the truly great days on the railways.

This was a time before cheap internal flights and deep concerns about climate change, but the principles from this pre-nationalisation era of a quality service and engineering supremacy which generated global envy can occur again as Britain looks towards the railways to solve our transport quandary.

Taking a train may not be much fun over the next decade. Trains are already full and Network Rail has shelved nearly a third of the track renewal projects it had scheduled for next year. Some trains are now carrying 40% more passengers than they should, and year after year commuters are subject to soaring fares. Network Rail’s own forecasts predict passenger numbers rising nearly 45% by 2030 on the West Coast Main Line alone, connecting London with Scotland.

The answer to this question is clear. In order to get people out of their cars and off internal flights we must be both radical and ambitious with regards to the future of the railways, much in the same way that the railway pioneers in the 1920s and ’30s displayed unparalleled leadership and vision in both engineering and quality of service.

This means that all corners of Britain must be served by high- speed rail and that this service must be directly connected to Britain’s main hub airport at Heathrow, irrespective of whether a third runway is built. The benefits of this access for Wales, Scotland and northern England are enormous. As with the excellent Trains à Grande Vitesse (TGV) in France, all corners of our country must be served by high-speed rail.

Britain already has one high- speed rail line. It runs from the Channel Tunnel to St Pancras in London and is a great success.

The big question is where it should go next. I argue that this is something of a “no brainer” in the light of where our main conurbations are located and where our major airport stands.

In its forthcoming report the Bow Group concludes we must extend high-speed rail direct to a new station located alongside Heathrow to fully maximise high speed rail and aviation. This could then allow the new station to accommodate existing and soon- to-be electrified high-speed Great Western line trains to Wales and western England, the new Crossrail services from Reading to London, and importantly for Scotland, the new high-speed line can then run to Birmingham and eventually to the north of England and on to Scotland.

To build a new interchange station at Heathrow to provide all of these connections would have huge benefits for South Wales and the west of England including the cities of Bristol, Plymouth and Exeter. This could both allow commuters from Wales and these cities to access Heathrow direct on the Great Western line instead of having to alight at Slough or Reading, and also allow them to connect to high-speed rail services direct at the new Heathrow station and travel on into Europe via the Channel Tunnel.

A possible Heathrow station site has already been identified where the M25 crosses the Great Western main line. It would be about two miles from the new station to Heathrow Terminal 5, a ride of just a few minutes on a transit system.

This would allow Wales and western England to rightly boast and promote themselves to international business as a location connected to Europe’s main hub airport with short onward journey times to cities like Cardiff, Swansea and Bristol.

The next stage of high-speed rail development will connect London with Birmingham but it is still not clear whether this line will run through a new Heathrow station or avoid the airport altogether. The latter choice would represent an abandonment of responsible transport planning alongside economic and environmental folly. To connect high-speed rail into Heathrow would have huge benefits, by reducing the time taken to reach our premier hub airport from the major centres of economic activity and providing the opportunity to attract short-haul air passengers on to rail.

The airport is also Britain’s largest generator of road traffic. We must reduce the 65% of Heathrow passengers who choose to arrive at the airport by car, with higher proportions of car users travelling from the West. If rail services do not connect directly with Heathrow then direct airport rail access for Wales would also be lost.

At present Welsh travellers to Heathrow by rail have to travel either directly into Paddington and then come back out by Heathrow Express – all adding extra expense and time – or alight before or after the airport at Reading or Slough and then take road transport. This is unacceptable.

Political rhetoric about integrated transport strategies or eliminating internal flights to be replaced by trains can and will only work when policymakers embrace the basic concept that in order for one transport choice to beat another it must be better, easier and cheaper.

The railway pioneers who battled away to secure success in the early part of the last century would recognise the challenges faced by high-speed railway planners today.

To omit Europe’s main hub airport from future national high-speed rail and to not include Wales or western England into the largest rail and airport hub in Europe would be both shortsighted and economically nonsensical.

I trust Wales’ politicians will make their voices heard on this vital topic as we enter a new age of the train.

Tony Lodge is chairman of the Bow Group Transport Committee, a centre-right think-tank allied to the Conservative Party. His pamphlet, Skytrain – Why High-Speed Rail And Aviation Are Inseparable, will be published by the Bow Group next month

source[/textarea]

Could such a link not further damage Cardiff airports ability to provide and promote it's own air links?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Almost certainly it would but the proposal seems to be aimed at improving Wales's economy and its ability to compete on the world stage rather than the fortunes of the airport serving its capital city.

In the past few months in particular I have detected a gathering groundswell of opinion that air travel is damaging and anti-social and it seems that all sorts of bodies and governments are starting to make noises pushing alternatives.

For the UK domestic route switching away from air is the obvious soft option as are routes to the near continent via the Channel Tunnel.

If regional and London airports lost most of their domestic routes to rail there would be more capacity at LHR which could take more passengers from the regions on mid and long haul if the rail connection was much improved, leading to less need for regional airports' expansion and even in some cases an opportunity to close one or two.

I'm not proposing this but it's how I read the current state of play vis-a-vis climate change.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

[offtopic]Did you have a good birthday Planenut321!!!! :drinks:[/offtopic]

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Delta CWL-JFK planned?

There has been discussion in recent days on both the fruit and Principality aviation message boards concerning Delta commencing a service to JFK.

A poster on the fruit board says a slot application has been made for a 757 service commencing next summer - of course a slot application doesn't mean a route will be flown but would certainly indicate some interest from an airline.

The aviation people on the Welsh board say the thing is in the wind but is dependent on the Welsh Assembly Government putting up some money. £1 million has been quoted which, if true, doesn't seem a huge amount in the scheme of things. The airline also apparently needs to be convinced that major organisations in Wales would support the route.

On the face of it a new USA route from a UK regional airport, especially one of CWL's size putting it seemingly down the pecking order after such airports as NCL, EMA, LPL and LBA, seems highly unlikely in the present economic climate with passenger numbers between the UK and USA well down this year (around 10%?).

Furthermore, the second smallest UK regional airport to have a regular scheduled route to the USA lies just across the river from CWL. BFS is the smallest.

Now, unless Delta believes CO is about to pull out of BRS and thinks it has spotted a potential gap in the market, the idea of linking South Wales with New York at the present time does appear a bit unlikely.

But one never knows when it comes to commercial aviation. I always think it is the second hardest industry to make financial sense of after professional football.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

I would say it is extremely unlikely that Delta plan an imminent launch of a US service to New York from CWL. If the airline has actually applied for slots on the route it doesn't necessarily mean any new service will operate from CWL. Other airlines have been known to play the same game of applying for slots at one airport and launching the route from another. In my neck of the woods, Jet2 did this with a couple of routes, I think the NCL - LGW route was filed as LBA - LGW initially, then the route was announced from Newcastle. Both Easyjet and Ryanair have done the same in the past because it keep their competitors guessing!!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

[textarea]Transport expert calls for Cardiff Airport marketing

Cardiff International Airport could gain lucrative routes to Germany and other European destinations – if Wales mounted a sustained marketing campaign there, an expert has claimed.

Martin Evans, of the Wales Transport Research Centre, said Welsh Assembly Government policy is “flawed” because it is dominated by selling Wales to UK visitors – who arrive by car and spend little here.

He says attracting more overseas visitors could help Cardiff Airport face up to tougher competition if Bristol Airport gets the go-ahead in February for a £150m expansion.

“The WAG is stuck in attracting day visitors by car, and has no appetite for change,” said Mr Evans.

“Tourists who arrive by air spend more money. People who drive in tend to bring tea and sandwiches and leave without spending much.

“It’s a flawed policy. Attracting air visitors has been left to Visit Britain, who tend to attract them in through the south-east of England. It’s not a policy that works well for Wales.”

Cardiff Airport would need more inbound passengers if Bristol competition intensifies. Bristol’s expansion plan aims for four million extra passengers per year by 2016, with five or six extra flights per hour.

Steve Hodgetts, Cardiff Airport’s business development director, said Canadian and Scottish flights had attracted as many inbound visitors to Cardiff as outbound passengers.

He said many Germans now visited Wales, but by car or through other airports. Sustained marketing in Germany could convince sceptical airlines that flights to Cardiff would be viable, he said.

Mr Hodgetts said: “Wales commits less money to supporting its air transport activity than any other region in the UK. We need to get a sense of distinctiveness for Cardiff and Wales. We don’t want to be a sub-set of Bristol Airport’s market, which is tending to happen now.”

A WAG spokesman said: “Visit Wales works closely with Cardiff Airport to stimulate route development. If the airport is successful at attracting new routes, Visit Wales would adjust its marketing strategy accordingly.

“Visit Wales works closely with Visit Britain to promote Wales in key long-haul tourism markets.

“It makes sense for us to work with Visit Britain in this way to achieve maximum value for our marketing spend.

“Under a new agreement with Visit Britain, Visit Wales concentrates its marketing on nearer European markets.”[/textarea]

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales ... -25508109/

Bristol Airport is now not expecting the additional 4 mppa taking the total to 10 mppa until at least 2020.

The WAG may not spend that much on assisting CWL but the South West Regional Development Agency has taken a policy decision to refuse to assist its airports in any way. THE SWRDA has even opposed Bristol Airport's expansion.

If the local authority does approve the BRS expansion next month (unlikely in many people's view) that won't be the end of it. There will be legal challenges and the whole scheme may yet be called for a public enquiry.

If the local authority rejects the planning application the airport will appeal.

Either way, nothing is going to happen on the ground for a long time - although the current £7.5 million western walkway work (being constructed as general permitted development without the need for planning consent) will have a major positive effect on the airport's operations.

As for Germany, Flybe has said recently that if its routes are supported at CWL this year it will seriously look at opening some German routes from the airport in 2011.

Martin Evans seems to be Wales's David Learmount or Chris Yates - always good for a quote when asked or if he feels the need to get something off his chest about Welsh aviation.

 

[welshguy39]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

found this today dont know about the airport growing more like going downhill and new budget flights where did that come from and what airline
Cardiff Airport
Latest information about our growing regional airport with new budget services to a range of European destinations. Includes live arrival and departure times updated every five minutes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/tr ... orts.shtml

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

It looks as though it's something that has been taken from a CWL publicity blurb of some time ago when the airport was expanding but has not been updated.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Saw an interesting comment from Spencer Birns, the man responsible for routes at CWL.

He was responding to a discussion on the Wales Aviation website where someone had suggested that if Doncaster-Sheffield could attract Wizzair then so should Cardiff be able to.

SB said that they had been in talks with Wizzair on several occasions but that each time the airline had demanded a subsidy of around £10 per departing passenger to set up routes at CWL.