Ryanair

[Jerry]

Interesting, although Wiki is notoriously unreliable with this sort of thing and it wouldn't be the first time that CWL has been the victim of spoofers with false route announcements.

If it is a spoof the fact that separate starting dates have been shown for the different routes means it's more elaborate than before, so there might be something in it.

I am very weary of this on Wiki, given the reputation for unreliability of the site. I am sure that I saw MoL stating that he was going to cut back on expansion from UK bases and concentrate on expansion at bases who remain in the EU. I guess we'll just have to see

IF this is true and it still is an IF because i've just checked Ryanairs website and still only Dublin and Tenerife come up. I would've thought the airport would make a big fan fair about it with Roger Lewis trying to get as much press time as possible! I did tweet Cardiff airport about it but no answer yet! Though they might be busy with everyone moaning about the CWL-LCY flights!
Because of the staggered dates i would suggest that the flights would be connected to new aircraft being delivered to Faro Girona and Malaga which are Ryanair bases. Ryanair can expand their routes to and from the UK without basing aircraft in the UK. I know they are technically an Irish airline but in reality they are a European airline and with the routes they've picked and depending on frequencies there should be more than enough potential pax to support Ryanair Vueling and Flybe on these routes. Especially if Ryanair succeeds in bringing over Welsh pax who use Easyjet for these routes from BRS.

 

[Ray Finkle]

When it comes to LBA and BHX I think Ryanair had their hand forced by Jet2. It's no coincidence that 2 of Birmingham's three new routes are also Jet2 routes with the third loosely in competition.

I think it's right to be cautious of Wiki as anybody can edit it as they see fit. In the past however Qatar Airways appeared for a while on the Birmingham page before disappearing, it was later announced. We've also recently seen Finnair appear briefly and they have been strongly rumoured.

Those routes seem plausible for Cardiff though and whilst Mr O'Leary did say expansion would be focused on the Continent I'd say that doesn't rule out away based aircraft flying into the UK.

If you want to get a heads up then keep an eye on the app, new routes often appear before the website.

 

[superking]

On Cardiff Airports wikipedia page under Ryanair there are 3 new routes Faro(begins 15 April 2017) Girona (begins 30 May 2017) and Malaga (begins 12 April 2107). Noting is bookable so hopefully someone has jumped the gun before the big announcement!

have to wait for airport or airline release about these routes. wiki is never to be believed. if true that will put pressure on the fao and agp flights run by other airlines. it will be a blood bath I recon.

 

[Tinkerman]

View the posting history by the Wiki poster who updated the page. Then you will see exactly how credible this is ...

 

[Jerry]

have to wait for airport or airline release about these routes. wiki is never to be believed. if true that will put pressure on the fao and agp flights run by other airlines. it will be a blood bath I recon.

View the posting history by the Wiki poster who updated the page. Then you will see exactly how credible this is ...

IF it happens and it's an IF because the posting has been taken down then it all depends on the frequency. Competition won't effect them too much. Personally I believe that in the summer CWL could sustain a daily AGP. FAO is different at the moment Flybe do 4 flights a week I doubt it could sustain more than 5 flights a week. Maybe Flybe would cut there's down to 3 and introduce a new destination? And i'd be surprised if GRO effected BCN as BCN also operates as a hub route. IF they put these routes on then it will raise the profile of CWL and it may also attract pax back from BRS who have the attitude that CWL isn't worth looking at because it doesn't have Ryanair and EasyJet.
Tinkerman-it was posted by an anonymous poster but has been taken down since. We'll see soon enough whether it was a hoax in my opinion or someone who knew something but jumped the gun.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I agree that CWL is underserved on many summer sun routes. It's really a question of getting a balance. If Ryanair or Jet2 (or both?) just picked the sun routes at a high frequency then, together with what is currently on offer, there would be overkill.

Ideally, there would be a mix of sun and city routes but low cost airlines, understandably, want a share of an airport's busiest sectors.

I do have a concern, and not just with CWL, that if the pound exchange rate doesn't improve in the pound's favour it might affect the holiday trade. People would probably still go on their main holiday but might not also fly on additional shorter holiday breaks as well to the degree that perhaps they have been doing in recent years.

We saw what happened the in the recession a few years ago when airports saw substantial passenger number drops.

I know that inbound tourism would benefit from a weaker pound but that part of the business is not usually the major one at most regional airports.

 

[Jerry]

I agree that CWL is underserved on many summer sun routes. It's really a question of getting a balance. If Ryanair or Jet2 (or both?) just picked the sun routes at a high frequency then, together with what is currently on offer, there would be overkill.

Ideally, there would be a mix of sun and city routes but low cost airlines, understandably, want a share of an airport's busiest sectors.

I do have a concern, and not just with CWL, that if the pound exchange rate doesn't improve in the pound's favour it might affect the holiday trade. People would probably still go on their main holiday but might not also fly on additional shorter holiday breaks as well to the degree that perhaps they have been doing in recent years.

We saw what happened the in the recession a few years ago when airports saw substantial passenger number drops.

I know that inbound tourism would benefit from a weaker pound but that part of the business is not usually the major one at most regional airports.

Yes ideally ALC AGP and PMI would be daily during the summer with FAO 5 weekly. I would hope as well that if Ryanair or someone like came along they would look at more Canary Islands destinations. More city destinations would be good hopefully Rome and maybe Naples. Also i would wonder if a destination like Copenhagen would work?
The pound is a concern and an airport like CWL would be vunerable but I guess it's a case of wait and see and carry on as normal as much possible.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Naples is really a summer leisure destination. It would be better served from CWL by someone like Thomson.

Copenhagen is a tricky one. At BRS for instance easyJet operated CPH in its early days at Lulsgate but then axed it until about three years ago. Since its return at either 3 or 4 x weekly (from memory I can't recall which) the route has been reduced to just 2 x weekly although it does operate year-round.

The Canaries along with the 'Costas' and Faro seem an obvious choice for expansion and we've mentioned Rome before.

 

[Jerry]

Naples is really a summer leisure destination. It would be better served from CWL by someone like Thomson.

Copenhagen is a tricky one. At BRS for instance easyJet operated CPH in its early days at Lulsgate but then axed it until about three years ago. Since its return at either 3 or 4 x weekly (from memory I can't recall which) the route has been reduced to just 2 x weekly although it does operate year-round.

The Canaries along with the 'Costas' and Faro seem an obvious choice for expansion and we've mentioned Rome before.

I do wonder if a carrier like Ryanair may have to big an aircraft to fly city routes from CWL that are not sun routes and Flybe or a carrier with similar sized aircraft would be a better size for the likes of Berlin Munich Milan and potential city routes like Copenhagen.

 

[Tinkerman]

IF it happens and it's an IF because the posting has been taken down then it all depends on the frequency. Competition won't effect them too much. Personally I believe that in the summer CWL could sustain a daily AGP. FAO is different at the moment Flybe do 4 flights a week I doubt it could sustain more than 5 flights a week. Maybe Flybe would cut there's down to 3 and introduce a new destination? And i'd be surprised if GRO effected BCN as BCN also operates as a hub route. IF they put these routes on then it will raise the profile of CWL and it may also attract pax back from BRS who have the attitude that CWL isn't worth looking at because it doesn't have Ryanair and EasyJet.
Tinkerman-it was posted by an anonymous poster but has been taken down since. We'll see soon enough whether it was a hoax in my opinion or someone who knew something but jumped the gun.

Jerry, Wiki is not at all anonymous. Every edit is logged against a user, or where they don't have an account, logged against their local IP address. Check out the user you so gladly mention and you'll see he has absolutely no idea with anything regarding the aviation industry. Just someone having a jolly.

Guys, guys, guys. Never ever believe Wiki, or post regarding things on there. More often than not they are completely untrue. If i didn't want my IP logged against edits i'd go on there and post that Air Koryo is to start a double daily service to Pyongyang. That's how simple it really is.

If FR or any other airline are to increase their offering ex CWL for next Summer then it certainly won't be broken via Wikipedia first. The booking engines or press releases come first in usual circumstances, not the airline posting it on Wikipedia prior to announcing to the world.

My bets are currently off against any major expansion of CWL routes next year, if any we will see perhaps a small number of pre-existing routes launched with another airline, namely FR. Or perhaps more from VY and BE.

Even though this is the FR thread i would also like to post that Jet2 have now seemingly shelved their plans for a CWL base, at least for the time-being. The three originally quoted were BHX, STN and CWL, with the two former looking likely bases for S17. Of course BHX already is ...

 

[Jerry]

Jerry, Wiki is not at all anonymous. Every edit is logged against a user, or where they don't have an account, logged against their local IP address. Check out the user you so gladly mention and you'll see he has absolutely no idea with anything regarding the aviation industry. Just someone having a jolly.

Guys, guys, guys. Never ever believe Wiki, or post regarding things on there. More often than not they are completely untrue. If i didn't want my IP logged against edits i'd go on there and post that Air Koryo is to start a double daily service to Pyongyang. That's how simple it really is.

If FR or any other airline are to increase their offering ex CWL for next Summer then it certainly won't be broken via Wikipedia first. The booking engines or press releases come first in usual circumstances, not the airline posting it on Wikipedia prior to announcing to the world.

My bets are currently off against any major expansion of CWL routes next year, if any we will see perhaps a small number of pre-existing routes launched with another airline, namely FR. Or perhaps more from VY and BE.

Even though this is the FR thread i would also like to post that Jet2 have now seemingly shelved their plans for a CWL base, at least for the time-being. The three originally quoted were BHX, STN and CWL, with the two former looking likely bases for S17. Of course BHX already is ...

I know wikipedia is not exactly reliable. Just found it interesting because the routes in a way would make sense and were dated though maybe thinking about it Alicante and Palma de Mallorca would make more sense than Faro and Gerona. Any Ryanair routes would probably be greeted by a great fanfair from the airport!
I think anymore routes from BE (unless new aircraft were based) are high unlikely. If there will be new routes it will probably come from VY or more than likely it'll just be more frequencies on the routes they already have. As for Jet2 maybe they will fly from there Spanish bases but can't see a base this year or maybe at all. The only problem is that all the airlines that get mentioned would just fly the same routes and just overload on a few specific routes and there is Cardiffs problem it needs to find the right balance with a good spread of destinations.
Personally i would think that if Flybe stuck to Northern Europe, Vueling to Spain and Italy (future), Ryanair could cover the Canary Islands (maybe Portugal as well) and the airport could try and find an airline to cover Greece and Cyprus. That would mean that the airport wouldn't be reliant on one carrier in particular. I would not be surprised if Jet2 announced Stansted in the near future as that would be their next logical step.

 

[Tinkerman]

Sorry Jerry i disagree mate.

Fact of the matter is, FR will want ALC, AGP, PMI and any other money spinners, they don't and won't take second string routes.

The nature of the industry is that, unfortunately for CWL's sake you can't cherry pick routes you're willing to offer any prospective airlines, and the growth that BRS has delivered in numerous markets has simply outdone CWL. I think CWL has pretty much reached what it can reasonably achieve with respect to city routes, just there does remain to be some slack with the sun routes. VY will be the best carrier to take these on. Seems like STN will be the next Jet2 base, but it's good to see that CWL was once mentioned.

 

[Jerry]

Sorry Jerry i disagree mate.

Fact of the matter is, FR will want ALC, AGP, PMI and any other money spinners, they don't and won't take second string routes.

The nature of the industry is that, unfortunately for CWL's sake you can't cherry pick routes you're willing to offer any prospective airlines, and the growth that BRS has delivered in numerous markets has simply outdone CWL. I think CWL has pretty much reached what it can reasonably achieve with respect to city routes, just there does remain to be some slack with the sun routes. VY will be the best carrier to take these on. Seems like STN will be the next Jet2 base, but it's good to see that CWL was once mentioned.

Yeah you maybe right. IF Ryanair does expand it's routes at CWL then they maybe looking to just fill in the schedules of aircraft at their continental bases i'd be extremely surprised if they based aircraft at CWL so maybe their route selection might not be predictable. That's why the wiki post interested me because they are all bases and with the dates could've possibly been linked with the delivery of new aircraft at those bases. With city routes there could be the possibility of the south of France and maybe Prague? But they would be weekend break destinations and I doubt anything more than a 100 seater aircraft would work. Many city destinations from CWL would probably only be workable with 80-100 seat aircraft. Hopefully Vueling will continue to add destinations.

 

[Tinkerman]

I admire your enthusiasm for CWL Jerry i must be honest, but we have to be realistic with regard to what CWL can and cannot achieve. The likes of PRG etc seem an absolute age away when we have the untapped sun routes remaining primarily from the Baby days. Like scheduled ALC, AGP, PMI etc. should be able to be supported by a much larger number of passengers than present, and VY seem pretty reluctant to change things for the time-being, although they have been calculating with their slow and steady expansion approach.

Realistically CWL needs to continue it's upward trend, but as always the key seems to be attracting Welsh passengers back from BRS and BHX and through the doors at CWL. This is the hardest task, and one which BE still seems to be struggling to achieve.

For the life of me i cannot understand why GVA with BE has been slightly reduced this coming Winter, there are absolutely loads of rotations ex BRS. Just a fine example though of the continuing issue CWL and its incumbent airlines face.

One thing to note since we are in the FR thread is the possible dilution of services at BRS with any additional CWL movements, although the argument could probably be made that the majority of the routes that FR would likely want to operate from CWL can be well supported from our core catchment without the need of topping up from outside of this.

 

[Jerry]

I admire your enthusiasm for CWL Jerry i must be honest, but we have to be realistic with regard to what CWL can and cannot achieve. The likes of PRG etc seem an absolute age away when we have the untapped sun routes remaining primarily from the Baby days. Like scheduled ALC, AGP, PMI etc. should be able to be supported by a much larger number of passengers than present, and VY seem pretty reluctant to change things for the time-being, although they have been calculating with their slow and steady expansion approach.

Realistically CWL needs to continue it's upward trend, but as always the key seems to be attracting Welsh passengers back from BRS and BHX and through the doors at CWL. This is the hardest task, and one which BE still seems to be struggling to achieve.

For the life of me i cannot understand why GVA with BE has been slightly reduced this coming Winter, there are absolutely loads of rotations ex BRS. Just a fine example though of the continuing issue CWL and its incumbent airlines face.

One thing to note since we are in the FR thread is the possible dilution of services at BRS with any additional CWL movements, although the argument could probably be made that the majority of the routes that FR would likely want to operate from CWL can be well supported from our core catchment without the need of topping up from outside of this.

If VY don't expand their offering from CWL then maybe Ryanair could do AGP ALC and PMI maybe a 3 weekly for each? And I would of thought their goal would be to attract EasyJet welsh pax from BRS. For BE to expand or increase route frequency then they will have to base more aircraft or adjust the schedules of more non-based aircraft and i do wonder if they just see CWL as a way to occupy aircraft they don't want and I wonder if Aer Lingus pulling out messed up Flybe's winter plans especially with the addition of TXL. There is time though before the summers end for Ryanair to still announce something so who knows they could surprise us!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Hello Tinkerman. I agree with your last paragraph (and with a number of other things you have said). When new routes or expanded frequencies on existing routes occur at CWL there is rarely a corresponding drop in passenger numbers at BRS on the routes in question. Most of the time the passenger numbers continue to rise at BRS but whether they would have risen at a greater rate had the CWL initiatives not commenced no-one can really say.

However, the underlying trend suggests that there is a substantial untapped reservoir of passengers in the CWL catchment who might not fly at all if they can't fly from their local airport. How far this situation extends beyond the main sun routes is a moot point but it is to be hoped that the revitalised airport management has been carrying out market surveys. I know these surveys can be of limited value at times because people will say they will fly to A or B if the route was started and then don't when the opportunity is presented, or at least not in the numbers that the surveys suggested (this applies to any airport). Nevertheless, the airport always needs to try to prove a market exists for any route they are anxious to begin.

 

[Jerry]

Hello Tinkerman. I agree with your last paragraph (and with a number of other things you have said). When new routes or expanded frequencies on existing routes occur at CWL there is rarely a corresponding drop in passenger numbers at BRS on the routes in question. Most of the time the passenger numbers continue to rise at BRS but whether they would have risen at a greater rate had the CWL initiatives not commenced no-one can really say.

However, the underlying trend suggests that there is a substantial untapped reservoir of passengers in the CWL catchment who might not fly at all if they can't fly from their local airport. How far this situation extends beyond the main sun routes is a moot point but it is to be hoped that the revitalised airport management has been carrying out market surveys. I know these surveys can be of limited value at times because people will say they will fly to A or B if the route was started and then don't when the opportunity is presented, or at least not in the numbers that the surveys suggested (this applies to any airport). Nevertheless, the airport always needs to try to prove a market exists for any route they are anxious to begin.

Until CWL actually put routes on then nobody knows if they will succeed. In a way routes like Berlin and Munich are a gamble. Look at Dusseldorf. Now with the Air Berlin codeshare that might work in the future. There could be many routes that with the right sized aircraft could work from CWL British ones and European but it's mainstay will always be the sun routes.

 

[Tinkerman]

It is possible to know whether they succeed or not. It depends on the percentage of passengers required outwith of the core catchment. The higher this is, the less chance of success it has at CWL.

A simple history lesson of routes came and gone throughout the last 10 years at CWL will tell you that. But i neither have the will or time to do such an exercise. I can start the ball rolling with a couple to say the least, 2L's ZRH and Germanwings DUS ... Both follow the principle that not enough of CWL's core catchment has neither the desire, need or propensity to fly to Airport XXX, so a large proportion requires topping up from outside the core catchment. These PAX are more easily served from BRS or BHX and can often find fares at a cheaper price with higher frequency at these airports compared to CWL. Simple economics does the rest !

Now for those who have a little more time, apply the scenario i've mentioned above to some of CWL's longer serving and most successful routes, ALC, AGP, MJV, FAO, PMI, AMS and a few others and you'll be able to see how successful a route will be from CWL.

 

[Jerry]

CAA Stats May 2016
Ryanair weekly Tenerife South has average load 176 with a load factor of 93.1% that is a weekly flight. The total for the month was 1408.

 

[CraigW92]

Summer 17 being loaded into the system: currently looks like 1 X weekly TFS from March 30, would be interesting as to if this was the case, the route is scheduled to go 2 X weekly from late October