Cardiff Airport - General Thread

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

[textarea]David Cameron expected to announce Wales powers deal

Prime Minister David Cameron has revealed a major announcement about the tax and borrowing powers of the Welsh government will be made on Friday.

Speaking to BBC Wales, Mr Cameron said he and deputy PM Nick Clegg would be outlining major changes for funding in Wales.

An announcement about an M4 relief road is also expected.

The prime minister also announced the 2014 Nato summit is to be held in Wales at Newport's Celtic Manor.

Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg's announcement is expected to be the UK government's response to a review by the Silk Commission on the tax and borrowing powers for Wales.[/textarea]
Full report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-24764257

The NATO summit at nearby Newport ought to result in a fleet of aircraft into CWL carrying the so-called Great and Good including the US and French presidents and the German chancellor.

It's potentially good news for the airport in one sense and for spotters if they can get anywhere near the place given the security measures that will be put in place. Regular passengers may well be inconvenienced though, especially when the US President puts in an appearance.

As for tax and borrowing powers, one of the recommendations of the Silk Commission that was set up to look into such matters was that APD should be devolved to the Wales Government, for long haul in the first instance. Whether APD will be included in those powers that the Westminster Government wishes to devolve may be doubtful as it would be seen to pre-empt the Davies Commission, as well as the House of Commons investigation into aviation matters which has APD as a specific topic, but it's not out of court entirely in my view.

If the Wales Government was given long haul APD powers and, as seems very likely, significantly reduced the rates (possibly to a nil band) it would be a major boost to getting some inter-continental charter routes back at CWL whilst at the same time putting nearby airports in England at a considerable disadvantage.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Re my previous post, APD is not amongst the tax raising powers the Westminster government proposes devolving to the Wales government. A decision will probably not be made regarding devolving APD until after the Davies Commission reports.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-24763988

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

[textarea]£10m government loan for Cardiff Airport

Cardiff Airport is to receive a £10m loan from the Welsh government to make improvements to the site.

The money will be used for a new security area to accommodate new technology and more passengers, a new taxi booking service in arrivals and improved drop off and pick up areas.

The loan will be repaid over 12 years, and further improvements will be made.[/textarea]

Full report at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-25332200

Although the airport is owned by the Welsh government it's done through an 'arm's-length' company. It would be interesting to speculate whether such a loan would have been forthcoming had the airport still been in private hands.

Incidentally, Wale's First Minister said this week that the airport's value has increased by £3 million since the government purchased it for £52 million last March. It can only be a theoretical book value because anything is only worth what someone else is prepared to pay for it.

He also said this week that the Welsh government will never completely sell off Cardiff Airport and that talks were underway with an established operator to take over the running of the airport in the medium term.

It's a politician's statement because he can never know what a government will do in the future, especially one of a different political hue to his own.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

I remember when LBA was owned by various councils of West Yorkshire. The airport had to operate as a Ltd company. According to Yahoo answers this means "that the Liability is limited to the amount of capital put into the business so if it goes under they 'the creditors' can't take personal assets." I expect CWL will be required to operate under the same Ltd rules. If this is the case I think it basically means the Welsh Government will never get it's money back so long as the airport isn't making money?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

I remember when LBA was owned by various councils of West Yorkshire. The airport had to operate as a Ltd company. According to Yahoo answers this means "that the Liability is limited to the amount of capital put into the business so if it goes under they 'the creditors' can't take personal assets." I expect CWL will be required to operate under the same Ltd rules. If this is the case I think it basically means the Welsh Government will never get it's money back so long as the airport isn't making money?

CWL is probably different to all other airports in the UK in that it's Wales's only significant airport and for political as well as nationalistic reasons no Welsh government would allow it to fail, quite apart from the economic benefits that a successful airport would bring.

Like many regional airports CWL was once local authority-owned but was privatised in 1995 when it was bought by the Welsh company, TBI. In time TBI was acquired by the Spanish infrastructure group, Abertis, and many will point to this move as the beginning of the slippery slope for the airport as they feel that Abertis was not much interested in it.

The £10 million is repayable over 12 years but you are quite right in that if the airport company struggles to make money it will be very difficult and it may even default.

However, it will be the tax payers who pick up the tab. In effect the Welsh government as airport owners are loaning to themselves.

It's still very messy. The best solution in my view is an experienced airport operator as partner and the First Minister confirms they are in talks to bring this about.

The trouble is he sways in the wind - I have no party political agenda in saying this as I have a healthy mistrust of all political parties and would abolish the lot if it was feasible which unfortunately it isn't.

A year ago at the time of the announcement that the Welsh government was to purchase the airport the First Minister told an incredulous Radio Wales interviewer that a private sector partner would be brought on board that would take on all the financial risks. The government would bear no financial risk but would share in profits.

Well, by March this year, when the airport was purchased by the government, unsurprisingly no private sector partner had been found.

The First Minister then seemed to change his mind and said that a private sector partner would be expected to bring money to the table but the suggestion that it would bear all the risks was not mentioned.

Now we have the First Minister saying that the airport will never be completely out of government hands in the future.

Is it any surprise that so many people are cynical when politicians become involved in commercial matters like this?

In the past year the First Minister has said that A 380s could operate out of CWL (on a 2,400 meter runway!)*, that within a decade CWL would be handling more passengers than Bristol which a few weeks later became that CWL would be on a par with the likes of Bristol and Southampton. Given that BRS handles 6 mppa and SOU less than 2 mppa it's difficult to have any confidence in someone who has such a tenuous grip of aviation reality and, in fairness, he's not the only politician who speaks out of their backside about matters of which they have no comprehension. Political rant over!!

* I know a BA 380 visited CWL on a courtesy visit earlier this year but there is a world of difference between a lightly loaded visitor and a fully loaded 380 operating commercially.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

[textarea]Cardiff Airport long-haul flights plan is rejected by commission

Expanding Cardiff Airport will not help reduce future demands on flights from London, a commission has concluded.

Welsh transport experts and business leaders had submitted plans for the airport to become an international hub.

The Airports Commission interim report says there is "little scope" to move increasing demand away from London and south east England to other locations.

The commission, investigating options for expanding UK airport capacity, is led by businessman Sir Howard Davies.

The hub proposal for Cardiff airport, called the Western Gateway Project, involved transferring passengers between Cardiff and London within an hour via high speed rail.

It hoped to attract hub and direct flights to global destinations such as North and Latin America and estimated it would require investment of £250m.[/textarea]

Full report at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-25419695

The Davies Commission also rejected another submission which was for a Severnside Airport that would have seen the closure of Cardiff and Bristol airports.

Furthermore, Davies and his colleagues are opposed to APD being devolved to Wales and Scotland because of the potential market distortion it would have on English airports close to the border. The government has already said that APD will not be devolved to Wales.

 

[superking]

new routes

reported on another thread.
new routes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fokker50 from Cityjet starting routes from end of Jan and some starting later....

To Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paris Orly and Jersey.

Hope enough pax for them.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Many thanks, superking.

I'll start a CityJet thread on the Cardiff forum.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Only just caught up with this news. That's a massive coup for Cardiff airport. CityJet has an excellent reputation and if they can't make a good go of those routes nobody will.

 

[superking]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

atlantic holidays s2014 charters
as reported on another forum atlantic holidays have pulled the funchal flights from cwl. also from all other airports.
sata were due to operate these flights using airbus a320.
there is no link to this story.
sorry if i have posted this in the wrong thread.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Thanks for that information, superking.

Atlantic Holidays operated one or two Funchal flights on a 320 (Monarch?) from CWL in summer 2013 which didn't have very good loads - 85 out at the end of September and the same number back early October according to CAA stats.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

The Davies Commission got it wrong regarding CWL

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/b ... ng-6476910

This link is to a piece (yet another, some would say!) about CWL's future as a more important player in the UK aviation scene by Martin Evans Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Society and Business at the University of South Wales.

He believes that the Davies Airports Commission 'got it wrong' in rejecting the submissions that involved CWL, in particular the Western Gateway proposal that would have seen the airport as effectively a long-haul terminal extension to Heathrow.

Western Gateway was rejected because of the high cost of the high speed rail links to London and the limited additional capacity and local demand. Mr Evans believes that this is missing the point as high speed rail links between London and Cardiff need to be built anyway so that South Wales can compete with the English regions that are due to get such links. This in turn would lead to more business and leisure traffic migrating from south-east airports to local airports, including CWL, thus improving the economic balance of the UK.

He also believes that power to set air passenger duty should be devolved to the Wales government and, anyway, it's an unfair tax because a passenger in south-east England pays the same amount of APD as one in Wales where incomes are much lower with a concomitant negative effect on the Welsh economy.

He dismisses the Commission's fears that devolution of APD to Wales would distort competition between CWL and BRS, saying the provision of different policies on either side of the border 'is exactly the point of devolved government'.

He also makes the suggestion that the UK government could lower APD rates for English airports but might think differently to the Wales Government.

He goes on to assert that if only long haul APD rates were devolved to the Wales Government the impact on BRS would be minimal because BRS doesn't have a big role to play as a long-haul airport because of infrastructure restrictions whereas potentially CWL does.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

[textarea]Welsh holiday makers to jet off to Genoa from Cardiff Airport

Welsh holiday makers will be able to jet off to Genoa from Cardiff Airport this summer.

Four new chartered flights have been added to the Welsh airport's schedule to allow customers across Wales and the South West to join P&O’s Mediterranean cruises direct from the Welsh capital.

The Mediterranean cruises will visit Florence, Pisa, Naples, Dubrovnik, Venice, Kotor, Corfu, Roma and Ajaccio over 14 nights.

Flights to Genoa will depart on April 2, April 30, June 11 and September 3.

This new route comes after P&O Cruises’ chartered flights to Barbados from Cardiff Airport in January and February 2014 sold out in just a matter of weeks.[/textarea]
Full article at http://www.carmarthenjournal.co.uk/Wels ... story.html

CWL has been included in a number of UK regional airports in the P&O Mediterranean cruise programme, others being Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, East Midlands, Newcastle and Bournemouth.

Although these cruise flights are to the Mediterranean the Welsh capital's airport has a surprisingly good record for supporting cruise flights to the Caribbean, especially in view of the supposedly low GDP and relatively poor state of the economy there.

It is an area in which it seems to easily outpoint its traditional rival across the Severn estuary because BRS gets fewer Caribbean flights and has seen CWL chosen by P&O as the airport for both South Wales and West Country customers for these cruises.

It is puzzling that the BRS cruise market is not more buoyant bearing in mind its catchment contains a large number of older, comfortably-off people who might be thought to be the sort who would be enthusiastic cruisers.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

[textarea]Passengers to get from Cardiff to Heathrow in less than two hours

Travellers will no longer have to 'double-back' on themselves and go via Paddington.

Hopes that Wales will have a high-speed link to Heathrow have jumped closer to reality as plans were announced that would cut the journey time from the Welsh capital from two hours and 40 minutes to just 1 hour and 55 minutes in 2021.

Network Rail announced the plans for the preferred route for a new rail line to the “UK’s only hub airport,” which will mean travellers will no longer have to go via Paddington.

A representative of Heathrow said in a statement: “The Great Western Main Line currently runs from Swansea, through Cardiff, before going on to Reading and London Paddington. Under the new plans passengers from Wales will no longer have to double-back on themselves via Paddington.

“As well as making travel abroad much easier for passengers, the plans also represent a big potential boost to the Welsh economy. The link will allow businesses to connect directly with Heathrow, and then on to the rest of the world, opening up new opportunities for trade.[/textarea]
Full report at: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales ... wo-6678340

This is the latest news on an initiative that was first aired some months ago.

Not sure about the Great Western main line running from Swansea through Cardiff to London though. The GWR main line has always been the one that Brunel completed in 1841 between Bristol Temple Meads and London Paddington via Bath.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

[textarea]Cardiff Airport likely to return to profit only in 'long-term', Edwina Hart suggests

Economy Minister was giving evidence to National Assembly's Enterprise and Business Committee on performance of publicly-owned hub

Ministers only expect the publicly-owned Cardiff Airport to return to profitability as part of a “long-term” strategy, the Economy Minister has suggested.

Appearing before an Assembly committee, Edwina Hart said the hub – which was bought by the Welsh Government for £52m at the end of 2012 – was working well under public ownership, but cast doubt on a quick return to profitability.

She also suggested there wouldn’t be a quick sale of the hub back into the private sector, which the Scottish Government is seeking for the newly-nationalised Prestwick Airport in Ayrshire.

“I’m confident that the model we have currently suits us,” Ms Hart told AMs on the Enterprise and Business Committee.[/textarea]
Full report at: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales ... it-6858065

It's a somewhat different picture to that painted by the First Minister, Carwyn Jones, just before Christmas 2012 when the 'nationalisation' plans were announced. He said the plan was for an experienced airport operator from the private sector to be appointed to run the airport. Furthermore, the day after the announcement he told an incredulous Radio Wales interviewer (I heard the interview) that the private sector partner would be wholly responsible for any losses the airport might accrue but that the Wales Government would share in any profits.

Unsurprisingly, no private sector partner could be found and the WG had to appoint its own arm's length company to run it for them.

Again unsurprisingly (it's politicians after all) the WG is claiming credit for the pleasing rise in passenger numbers in the past year when in fact the reasons primarily relate to building blocks already put in place by the previous Spanish owners and a generally better UK airport performance in 2013.

CWL is an airport with a passenger throughput small enough to potentially benefit from the extension to the Regional Air Connectivity Fund announced in this week's Budget but it's still not clear how much this will really help those airports that qualify.

 

[marsh.ger]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

In the recent UK budget it was announced that a Regional Air Connectivity Fund is to be launched. The Welsh Government has been requested to provide some clarification on what this actually means to Cardiff Airport.

Response by Edwina Hart MBE CStJ AC / AM
Minister for Economy, Science and Transport

In his recent Budget Statement, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an extension to the amount of funding available through the UK Air Connectivity Fund. The Department for Transport and HM Treasury are currently working to determine how this will operate in practice. They will develop guidance for Devolved Administrations and those seeking to make applications for supporting air routes. We will consider this guidance and its implications for Wales.

Edwina Hart also said the following relating to APD.

We were disappointed by the UK Government’s rejection of the Silk Commission’s recommendation for the devolution of long-haul APD. We do not agree with the UK Government’s rationale that devolution of APD would create market distortions and we will continue to argue the case for the devolution of APD.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

The problem with APD is the government is using the tax as a cash cow. With reducing numbers of smokers and associated revenue that brings they need to look for other revenue streams. I disagree with what amounts to a holiday tax for the majority of people but I can't see what else they can do to make up for the revenue shortfalls now APD is being relied upon.

 

[marsh.ger]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Air Passenger Duty is one of the easiest taxes to collect however a figure I have seen over the last year is that Air Passenger Duty from Welsh Aviation only equates to approximately to around £11m per year.

This is actually next to nothing however it has been hinted that if APD were to be devolved to Wales then some longhaul flights from Birmingham by the tour operators may shift to Cardiff.

It wouldn't be any cheaper for the passenger however passengers will likely pocket the APD tax rather than passing the savings on to their customers.

 

[marsh.ger]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Both Cardiff Airport and the Welsh Government will be attending Routes Europe 2014 which will be held in Marseille, France form 6th - 8th April 2014 according to their website.


Looking at the Floorplan it doesn't appear as if they will be taking up any floor space unlike World Routes 2013 in Las Vegas.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Cardiff Airport - Main Thread

Devolving APD to Wales or Scotland (Northern Ireland is slightly different in that its main competitor is in another country) will always be a contentious issue.

I could argue the case for devolving the tax equally as comprehensively as retaining it in the hands of the UK government. That's on the assumption that it won't go away within the UK completely although the Welsh and Scottish governments would no doubt reduce it - even to a nil band - if given the power. However, the bulk of the tax money comes through English airports which is why the chancellor won't want to give that up.

If any political party in power in Westminster judges it in their political interest to devolve the tax they will do it, irrespective of any skewing of markets that might occur.