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Looks like they have. According to FR24 and SWAG NBE departed at 06.15 but according to the airports departure board they will operate Zakynthos and Corfu together.Not a good sign then as shows our CFU wasn’t full.
Don’t think they can just bring the departure forward for NBE mind as can’t ensure all passengers have been advised.
Yes both were 1 weekly last year.According to TUIs timetable, the rest of May NBE departs at 0600. Was today's schedule supposed to be different?
CFU is also an afternoon departure.
It's still early in the season. Greece tends to attract fairly decent loads but not full this time of May as can be shown by both the CFU and ZTH taking additional MAN passengers.
CFU and ZTH are both now twice weekly, which I'm not sure if they were previously with the just 2 based aircraft? I could be wrong.
I didn't realise that Edinburgh was such a new base! I know that it has a limited long haul programme from TUI 4 Orlando and 4 Cancun returns I believe. If TUI do continue to expand especially if they want to add more Orlando flights to the Southwest then maybe CWL could persuade them to add them to CWL instead of BRS.
Short haul wise though it might be a few years off or if TCX withdraws maybe sooner, maybe we'll see a 4th based aircraft eventually.
TUI has expanded quite a lot recently over a number of bases. DSA has always been similar in size to CWL, except from they have now got long haul back. EDI I think only opened a few years back and TCX/LS are the dominant ones at GLA. I've always been surprised by the size of TUI at GLA as it's the main holiday airport for Scottish travellers.
What it does highlight however is that if you class South Wales and the Southwest as one catchment, TUI are very dominant as between BRS, CWL and EXT there are 8 short haul aircraft base, which is one more than BHX and 1 less than MAN & 2 less LGW. The only real Tour Operator competition is TCX with 4 aircraft between BRS and CWL.
With CWL being mentioned as one of the now larger bases without long haul, I thought i'd look into the figures and how they compare with 2007.
Cancun
Back in 2007 7633 passengers used to CWL service, the second lowest in the country with 1113 using BFS. DSA which had the same frequency carried 10149. (Bearing in mind the CWL service was split with DUB in 2007)
In total 349,880 people flew to Cancun in 2007 from the UK.
In 2018 13923 passengers used the BRS service, so near double what CWL carried in 2007.
Interestingly 846871 people flew to Cancun from the UK in 2018. Well over double that of 2007.
LGW, MAN and BHX have all over doubled their passengers on the route. CUN is now flown from 11 UK Airports whereas in 2007 it was 9.
VS stopped flying to CUN in 2019 which has likely left a big gap, but it's clearly Cancun has become more popular recently and there could be potential for it to return.
Orlando
Back in 2007 17,774 used CWL's service and 16849 used BRS service.
In 2006 CWL carried 38,080 passengers with no service from BRS.
Interestingly BHX only carried 14,006 passengers and DSA 10,634.
In 2018 10,504 used the BRS service.
In 2007 1,041,246 flew to Orlando Airport (MCO) and 837,837 to Sanford (SFB) giving total carried to Orlando at 1,878,983.
In 2018 1,482,725 flew to Orlando Airport (MCO) and 166,928 to Sanford (SFB) giving total carried to Orlando at 1,649,653
As you can see, although Orlando is a much bigger market than Cancun, there has been a decline in travel to Orlando since 2007. The drop in passengers using SFB is likely due to Travel City Direct/XL going out of business and TCX switching to MCO. 2018 give's a view of what TUI carry to Orlando, being the only UK operator now to Sanford.
I'm hoping someone can confirm as I thought TCD, MON and TOM were flying to SFB in 2006 & 2007? Which puzzles me why 2006 was so much higher than 2007.
In the grand scheme of things, it would be nice to think CWL and BRS could each support a weekly Orlando service. Running for 22 weeks from May until end of Sept is only just over 13,000 seats. Although if TUI were to increase SFB it would make more sense to double frequency from BRS and utilise the aircraft better than on long haul and being able to offer 10-11 day holidays.
Tui's reasons for relying exclusively on BRS from Severnside for summer long-haul despite that airport's operational constraints might be regarded as abstruse, yet they must have a sound commercial reason. I just can't fathom out what it is.
I agree with your thoughts that TUI might be wary of someone like Jet2 looking at BRS. However, the substantial increase at CWL this summer, including an additional based aircraft, must show that TUI regards CWL as an important market too.I think with BRS for TUI they probably feel it's a big enough and valuable enough market and a market that they have to serve in case their competitors move in.
With CWL I always get the feeling that airlines don't see it that way and that they know that people from Wales will quite happily travel long distances to catch their flights so will go to the airlines without the airlines going to them.
As a general note about CWL I also get the feeling that lots of people prefer to go to England because they consider CWL inferior and English airports as superior because they are bigger and the constant comparison with BRS is an example of that.
Thanks for that. I agree about First Choice and BRS long haul. I made the same point in my post #433 above.TUI usually have 4 or 5 flights for their own cruises from CWL, operating to Montego Bay, and Barbados, they operate a further 4 for P&O. I think BRS became more prominent for long haul when TUI took over First Choice, and the then ceo of First Choice, became CEO of Thomson, mainly because First Choice had operated from BRS for a lot longer than they had from Cwl, and had a bigger presence there.
I was more referring to the long haul side. Short haul wise TUI do seem happy with CWL. I think what helps is the popularity of cruises in the area. Hopefully they'll keep growing the short haul side.However, the substantial increase at CWL this summer, including an additional based aircraft, must show that TUI regards CWL as a
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