Vueling

[Foxlimayankee]

A lot of the destinations for those airports especially Newquay are domestic. CWL relies more on international travel so hence the slower recovery. If you look at Newquay for instance they were able to attract Easyjet and loganair who both launched a lot of destinations. Sadly southern Wales isn't considered enough of a holiday destination for the likes of say Loganair to launch routes like Newcastle or Inverness or Aberdeen. And of course there's little to no chance of Easyjet ever launching a route to Cardiff.

Little effort seems to be made by the WG to attract internal tourism, especially via air links. Wales saw big demand over the summer from UK tourism but it tends to be fragmented.
North Wales attracts huge amounts of tourism from the North West of England
Mid Wales attracts a big amount from the Midlands
South Wales attracts a lot from the Midlands across to London.

Cornwall is well known for not only the scenery but also the activities going on there, something West Wales hasn't really mastered, or marketed what it does have.
The location of Newquay and Exter Airports also provide a fairly decent location of accessing the counties. What the WG needs to do to attract internal and international tourists is to provide decent rail links from CWL to West Wales. West Wales is actually very well linked by Rail in terms of the infrastructure and number of stations, its just the service offering is poor.

It all needs to tie up to provide a seamless journey for tourists.

 

[Jerry]

It all needs to tie up to provide a seamless journey for tourists

Hopefully we'll see the T9 bus resume operations to provide better connections to Cardiff and beyond via the rail system especially as hopefully routes like Paris and Dublin will bring in inbound tourism as well as providing holiday destinations for the locals.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Hopefully we'll see the T9 bus resume operations to provide better connections to Cardiff and beyond via the rail system especially as hopefully routes like Paris and Dublin will bring in inbound tourism as well as providing holiday destinations for the locals.

The good thing about non-based aircraft flights is they aren't usually very early. ORY and DUB earliest flights are departing around 0800, which gives people the opportunity to catch the T9 or train connection, depending on origin. So that should boost public transport numbers.

With regards to tourism to West Wales, there needs to be a quick, simple and fairly fast way of getting to West Wales. The option now of getting a bus to Rhoose, train to Bridgend or Cardiff and connecting train onwards from there.
For example, to get a train from Cardiff Airport - Tenby only brings up these journey options -
CWL - Rhoose - Cardiff Central or Bridgend (Chg) - Carmarthen (Chg) - Tenby.
With journey times ranging between 3h46 via Bridgend or 3h56 up to 4hr46 via Cardiff Central, and also only 1 option at 0951 via Bridgend at 3h46, and 3 time options via Cardiff Central at 0751, 1051 and 1351 (Or an unrealistic overnight option from 2251 arriving 0616. These journey options are completely unrealistic. You could travel to CWL-London and back to Bristol in that time!

CWL-Swansea is better connected with an hourly service starting CWL-Rhoose-Bridgend then connect onto the more regular services to Swansea, taking around 1hr42 mins.

 

[Nuffsaid]

Is there any reason why through trains do not run through Bridgend and on to Swansea or further on the Vale of Glamorgan line?
Surely, a half hourly service running from Newport, through Cardiff and all station via the airport to Swansea would better link the major population centres to the airport as well as providing inbound tourists with better access to the popular tourist areas of the Gower and Pembrokeshire.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Is there any reason why through trains do not run through Bridgend and on to Swansea or further on the Vale of Glamorgan line?
Surely, a half hourly service running from Newport, through Cardiff and all station via the airport to Swansea would better link the major population centres to the airport as well as providing inbound tourists with better access to the popular tourist areas of the Gower and Pembrokeshire.

Time. Cardiff - Bridgend takes 18-28 mins (depending on intermediate stops) on the mainline and 58 mins via the Vale. What would be better if they can fit them in between the trains calling all stations is only stopping at say Barry and Rhoose

 

[Jerry]

CWL-Swansea is better connected with an hourly service starting CWL-Rhoose-Bridgend then connect onto the more regular services to Swansea, taking around 1hr42 mins.

Maybe in the future the WG might look at a T9 type service to Bridgend train station timed to help with better connections to the west of Wales.

 

[geoff]

According to an article in Simple Flying, Vueling are going to operate an A330-300 wet leased from Aer Lingus, on some of their new routes from Paris Orly, and are shown in the article as operating three flights a week to CWL.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

According to an article in Simple Flying, Vueling are going to operate an A330-300 wet leased from Aer Lingus, on some of their new routes from Paris Orly, and are shown in the article as operating three flights a week to CWL.

Just for clarification the article lists all of the destinations and that CWL will be 3-weekly. It doesn't state which routes the A330 will work.

Vueling Will Use An Aer Lingus A330 To Boost Paris Schedule

Spanish low-cost-carrier Vueling will wet lease an Airbus A330-300 from Irish national flag carrier Aer Lingus. The move…

simpleflying.com

 

[Jerry]

Seatplan for the CWL route looks like an A321

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Just for clarification the article lists all of the destinations and that CWL will be 3-weekly. It doesn't state which routes the A330 will work.

Vueling Will Use An Aer Lingus A330 To Boost Paris Schedule

Spanish low-cost-carrier Vueling will wet lease an Airbus A330-300 from Irish national flag carrier Aer Lingus. The move…

simpleflying.com

Thanks for that. I was about to ask. I thought for a minute that CWL was one of the airports that would see an A330 operation.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Prices for the route are still relatively low for the end of 2021 and start of 2022, but seem to rise for March and April. So hopefully it's just the late announcement causing low demand and low lead in fares and the route is generally selling well.
Not forgetting that Wales play France at home on 11th March. I wouldn't be surprised if we see the A330 for that.

The route is also only sale twice weekly currently. Either the 3 weekly comment in the article is incorrect or there is going to be an increase for summer.

 

[Jerry]

Hopefully we'll see it operate in the summer even if it is just 2 weekly!

 

[Nuffsaid]

How was the first flight to Paris today? Anybody know the loads?

 

[MrFenner]

How was the first flight to Paris today? Anybody know the loads?

I understand they were quite low, but given the lead booking time, November is generally low-low season and the pandemic is still around, it was inevitable.
Hopefully they’ll stick with it…

 

[Nuffsaid]

As expected. Thanks.

 

[Jerry]

I do hope they'll continue it for the summer. Part of me fears it's just a slot sitter for the winter.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Prices generally seem quite low for the rest of this year but seem to pick up from Feb onwards which is a good sign.

 

[CM.]

How was the first flight to Paris today? Anybody know the loads?

Prices generally seem quite low for the rest of this year but seem to pick up from Feb onwards which is a good sign.

I tend to think that loads might improve when we get closer to Xmas as Xmas tends to be busy for airlines with people going on Xmas trips and people going on Citybreaks which Paris is big for.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

A post on the Dried Plum says that the new Belfast International-Paris Orly route with Vueling had just eight passengers on the inaugural BFS-ORY flight this week. Passenger level on CWL's first flight was said to be 'quite low' in a post above. Comparisons with other airport routes to a destination is always useful to assess progress, if not definitive.

 

[Jerry]

A post on the Dried Plum says that the new Belfast International-Paris Orly route with Vueling had just eight passengers on the inaugural BFS-ORY flight this week. Passenger level on CWL's first flight was said to be 'quite low' in a post above. Comparisons with other airport routes to a destination is always useful to assess progress, if not definitive.

It was posted else where that the initial CWL flight load was 17 passengers. With a small lead up time, it being November and travel restrictions it's not surprising loads are very low. Fingers crossed they'll pick up.