TUi Airways

[Tinkerman]

Of course it will be the same as this year. The horse has already bolted and they've chosen BRS for both short-haul and long-haul growth, or in the latter case reinstatement.

I'd be highly surprised if TOM announced some kind of expanded schedule from CWL. A few prospective airlines are sniffing around for Summer 2018 though ...

 

[Jerry]

I don't think they would expand but they could chop and change frequencies on the routes they already do. Long haul wise I'll be very surprised if in the future CWL will even see cruise flights from TOM especially agree the 767 goes. New airlines at CWL will be interesting especially if they are ones TOM can book flights on then as we could then see new routes that way.

 

[Jerry]

Thomson Stats February 2017.
Arrecife 2986
Las Palmas 1422
Tenerife South 3692
Alicante 2762
Malaga 1380
Dubai DWC 578
Bridgetown 1115

 

[Aviador]

Was the Dubai flight a one off charter?

 

[Jerry]

Was the Dubai flight a one off charter?

Cruise flights. There were some in January as well if I remember correctly.

 

[Aviador]

Thanks Jerry.

Cardiff has done well to maintain its cruise flights. We lost ours years back when P&O pulled their cruise holidays from LBA. Were they operated on behalf of Thomson Holidays, P&O or another company?

 

[Jerry]

Thanks Jerry.

Cardiff has done well to maintain its cruise flights. We lost ours years back when P&O pulled their cruise holidays from LBA. Were they operated on behalf of Thomson Holidays, P&O or another company?

These were operated by Thomson Airways on behalf of Thomson Cruises. Cruise flights do seem to sell well from CWL there will be some more Norwegian ones this year as well as a Venice one. Celebrity cruises seem to be offering more. The P&O cruise flights tend to get operated by Thomas Cook. With Thomson relaunching long haul from BRS I do fear that the Thomson flights might slowly disappear to the other side of the bridge in the future. Hopefully that won't be the case.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

TOM operate a mixture of their own cruises and P&O cruises during the winter. Most of the Caribbean flights are for P&O

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Surprisingly, for such an affluent area with many older, well-off people (the typical cruise customer at one time, although I understand that these days cruising is enjoyed more generally by many age groups) BRS has tended to play second fiddle to CWL when it comes to transatlantic cruise flights down the years. Whether it's more to do with operational factors, rather than commercial ones, I don't know.

 

[CraigW92]

Summer 17

Monday

06:10 Bourgas
06:20 Mahon
13:30 Palma
16:00 Dalaman
20:30 Ibiza

Tuesday

06:00 Reus
06:00 Alicante
11:45 Tenerife South ( operated by Norwegian )
12:45 Heraklion
13:05 Kefalonia
16:10 Palma ( W patten operated by Eurowings )
22:40 Palma

Wednesday

06:20 Palma
07:05 Ibiza
14:00 Rhodes
14:55 Paphos

Thursday

06:00 Lanzarote
06:05 Faro
13:55 Dalaman
16:20 Malaga

Friday

07:35 Palma
08:35 Corfu
14:50 Mahon
17:35 Tenerife
22:00 Palma

Saturday

06:00 Palma
06:00 Ibiza
13:25 Alicante
13:45 Las Palmas
20:40 Kos

Sunday

07:00 Lanzarote
08:05 Malaga
13:25 Zante
16:55 Larnaca


2 X 738s based

Nothing new and MLA doesn't return, overall again dissapointing, although not a huge surprise.

 

[Jerry]

At the moment it doesn't look like CWL has got anything short haul wise but there is a suprise in that there is a long haul route for winter 17/18 operated on a 787.
On January 16th with a return on January 30th there is a Montego Bay flight and another one on February 20th with a return on 6th March. Also in the calendar but not bookable is December 19th.
Tuesday 16th CWL-MBJ 10.10-15.00 Tuesday 30th MBJ-CWL 17.00-06.25
Same times for February and March return.
Also on Sunday 4th March with a return on the 18th March there will be a Barbados flight.
4th March CWL-BGI 11.55-16.20 BGI-CWL 18.20-06.00.
I find TOM strange in that they refuse to to change what they offer short haul wise at CWL yet chuck in the odd long haul flight in Winter especially considering they now have a long haul operation at BRS.

 

[superking]

The long haul into cwl is cruise flights like other years. They cant be booked on the tom site.They always seem to do well from cwl

 

[Jerry]

The long haul into cwl is cruise flights like other years. They cant be booked on the tom site.They always seem to do well from cwl

They are holiday package flights. They are on sale on Thomsons website. I'm not sure if Thomson double up cruise and holiday package flights if the cruises aren't provided by them and i couldn't find any on their website at those dates.

 

[Jerry]

Had a look through Thomson's offerings for Summer 2018 and nothing different i'm afraid on the short haul side but compared to some other bases nothing has been cut and we still have 2 based aircraft and it does look like the Tuesday TFS and PMI will be operated by Norwegian and Eurowings again.
Burgas 1 weekly
Larnaca 1 weekly
Paphos 2 weekly
Heraklion 1 weekly
Corfu 1 weekly
Kefalonia 1 weekly
Zante 1 weekly
Kos 1 weekly
Rhodes 1 weekly
Faro 1 weekly
Malaga 2 weekly
Ibiza 3 weekly
Palma de Mallorca 5 weekly
Menorca 2 weekly
Reus 1 weekly
Alicante 2 weekly
Gran Canaria 1 weekly
Tenerife South 2 weekly
Lanzarote 2 weekly
Dalaman 2 weekly

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I've not 'liked' your post because there is no TOM expansion but because you've listed the summer 2018 programme for our benefit.

There really isn't much more that can be said about TOM's stagnation at CWL. We've all chewed it over so many times.

CWL will have to look elsewhere and I'm sure they have been and are continuing to do so.

 

[Tinkerman]

Given the fact the charter operators are now largely entrenched at CWL on the same things year in-year out, you may argue that any competition to this would add a degree of frailty into these operations with TOM and TCX.

Jet2 have caused profound effects on the charter market, with their BHX and STN bases causing some hefty TOM casualties at STN in particular. Given the fact other bases are losing aircraft, we can still be thankful we have our 2 B737-800's and a few W's in there too in addition to the long haul winter ops to BGI and MBJ etc.

Interestingly though i would like to see another charter-esque operator at CWL whether that is Jet2 or someone else.

 

[Jerry]

I think considering the news from other airports it's probably a case of actually being lucky nothing was cut and be surprised about the holiday flights for the the winter. Apparently there is also a BGI flight on the 31st December. It seems TOM have decided to do holiday flights instead of cruise flights as the only cruises i could find were from BHX, MAN and LGW.
Another airline like Jet2 from CWL would be great but part of me has been wondering whether departures could cope with another 2 or 3 737 size aircraft departing in the early morning. With TOMs 2 737s TCX's A320 KLMs E175 BE's 2 E195 that's a total potentially of nearly 800 people departing between 6 and 7. Could it cope with another 370 at least? The piers themselves don't seem to be opened up early so people can sit there, they tend to open them for the first departure. If they departed after 8 then it would be a different story.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

The departure lounge used to cope with MYT A321, FCA A320, 3x WW 733 1x KL F70/100 and 2-3 TOM flights in the past

 

[Jerry]

The departure lounge used to cope with MYT A321, FCA A320, 3x WW 733 1x KL F70/100 and 2-3 TOM flights in the past

Was it bigger in the past than it is now?

 

[Foxlimayankee]

In a way yes. The only change really is to Duty Free and more of a landside are with burger king which has resulted in some lost space.