Ryanair

[TheLocalYokel]

It's always a difficult task to try to second guess what any airline will do and Ryanair often comes up with surprises. I wouldn't be surprised if there was something for CWL this winter but what is anyone's guess.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

FAO and TFS is known to work from CWL, therefore can be duplicated from BRS. Polish routes aren't so I can't see them duplicating any. MLA with FR (Not BE!), ACE and LPA could work. In my opinion, leave the city routes to Flybe.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

FAO and TFS is known to work from CWL, therefore can be duplicated from BRS. Polish routes aren't so I can't see them duplicating any. MLA with FR (Not BE!), ACE and LPA could work. In my opinion, leave the city routes to Flybe.

 

[Jerry]

I am surprised that no one already does LPA (scheduled) from CWL. I think FR would just stick to sun routes at CWL but who knows they could surprise us!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

There is some talk in other forums about the possibility of Ryanair operating from Malta to Cardiff, perhaps because new routes have been announced from Malta this week. I read that the Ryanair Malta base is being increased to four aircraft this month, so you never know.

 

[Jerry]

It could be a route they may well be interested in. Considering it's a package holiday route there would be more people paying extra for luggage and it's a 3 and half hour flight people are more likely to buy food and drink as well so the yields may well be high. Once weekly could be a good fit. They do seem to be doing well on TFS. Could Malta be classed as a winter sun route?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

It could be a route they may well be interested in. Considering it's a package holiday route there would be more people paying extra for luggage and it's a 3 and half hour flight people are more likely to buy food and drink as well so the yields may well be high. Once weekly could be a good fit. They do seem to be doing well on TFS. Could Malta be classed as a winter sun route?

Malta seems to be a year-round route with Ryanair. At Bristol they operate 3 x weekly in summer and 2 x weekly in winter. Load factors are always very high each month - upper 90s% in summer. Doesn't tell us yield of course but, as you say, holidaymakers may well be inclined to boost the ancillary revenue with on-board spending.

 

[Jerry]

The only thing which might hold them back is the fact that they fly the route from BRS and they are the only ones who do it year round so they might be wary of effecting their BRS loads. Though they may think they could attract the Air Malta, TCX and TOM pax from South Wales.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Malta

I had a look at some of the past route workings. Going back 20 years CWL had a 2 x weekly Air Malta flight to Malta (both on Tuesdays) in summer 1997 as, incidentally, did BRS but on different days of the week there.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, CWL also had a weekly Air Malta flight in the previous winter that operated via BRS. CWL also had a weekly Airtours Malta flight for part of the winter whilst BRS had an Air 2000 weekly flight.

Incidentally, in summer 1997 CWL had three flights each week to Florida, two by Airtours and one by Britannia, plus a weekly Air Transat flight to Toronto. BRS had no long haul that summer.

 

[Jerry]

I had a quick look at Air Malta from last August. There average pax was 145 and there LF was 80% on an A320. So there is demand there and possibly with FR's cheaper prices and the fact they are FR they could probably do better.

 

[Jerry]

Ryanair will put on flights to Cardiff from Dublin for Ireland's away game in Cardiff for the World Cup 2018 qualifying match with Wales in Cardiff.
Flights will on the 8th, 9th and 10th of October.
8/10/17
DUB-CWL 16.05-17.05 CWL-DUB 17.30-18.30
9/10/17
DUB-CWL 06.55-07.55 CWL-DUB 08.20-09.20
DUB-CWL 12.35-13.35 CWL-DUB 14.00-15.00
10/10/17
DUB-CWL 08.15-09.15 CWL-DUB 09.40-10.40
DUB-CWL 13.50-14.50 CWL-DUB 15.15-16.15
DUB-CWL 14.50-15.50 CWL-DUB 16.15-17.15

 

[Jerry]

Had a look at the seat map for Monday for the new FAO route FAO-CWL is practically empty with only 19 seats (10% LF) blocked out but CWL-FAO looks pretty full with 159 blocked out (86% LF). In comparison Flybe's FAO-CWL on Sunday has 40 seats taken (34% LF) while there CWL-FAO flight has 108 seats taken (91% LF) so it looks at the moment Ryanair aren't effecting BE but may actually be creating there own demand.

 

[superking]

makes you wonder if there will be carnage with one of them. time will tell.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

It certainly is a good sign for FR. The prices appear cheaper on most days from CWL than BRS over the next few weeks, which isn't as great a sign.
It's impossible to compare this to BE though, as BE block off seats for weight and balance. So they may appear taken on the seat map, but in fact they are blocked from use. Also FR are 100% online check-in, so the seatmap is a better reflection on the departure day, BE are not. So with the possible blocked seats and mix of Airport and Online check-in, there's no real way to tell. There could be loads of empty seats on the seatmap on the departure day, but in fact most of the flight could even check-in at the Airport.

 

[Jerry]

It is a case of wait and see how FR effects BE but it will be an interesting route to watch to see how a sun route is effected with 2 scheduled carriers on it. I'm not sure but i think BE does have tour operators that have an allocation TOM or/and TCX I think. And i don't believe that the prices being lower are a bad thing either. Lots of people complain about the prices being higher than BRS so having lower prices especially lower than EZY will be a good thing for the airport.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

I think when baby operate the flight it was daily giving just over 1000 seats a week and it was working very well for them. I think TOM and TCX were both operating their own flights then too. Even with FR and BE it's only 850 seats. So although not a massive difference I think it's achievable and offers 2 choices so prices could come down to win back those that have defaulted to other Airports

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Ryanair Faro

Looking at the next few days, if anything Ryanair might have affected its own BRS loads rather than easyjet's loads with the CWL start-up. Ryanair operates daily from today with easyJet 14 weekly (2 x daily except Sun which is daily and Sat which is 3 daily). Today the Sunday easyJet flight (a 156-seat A319) was shown as 'sold out' as is one of tomorrow's two flights (a A319). The second flight tomorrow (a 180-seat A320) is currently shown as 84% occupied.

Looking at Ryanair, Monday is 83% occupied according to the seat selector but Tuesday at present is not much above 100 seats occupied. I never like using web seat selectors as definitive load guides and this is a miniscule sample anyway.

Furthermore, I have no way of comparing the similar period last year as the CAA of course shows only the total number of scheduled passengers on a route without breaking them down into airlines on the same route.

The positive thing for CWL is that the Ryanair Faro flights have attracted excellent numbers from the start. Only Ryanair will know if and how it impacts on their BRS flights.

 

[Jerry]

Only Ryanair will know if and how it impacts on their BRS flights.

I'm wondering if it will concern them that much? If they are attracting their own FAO passengers from BRS to CWL they might not mind if they are making more profit per passenger. Something must have attracted them to operate these flights from CWL instead of BRS and i'm wondering if TFS may have shown them that they could make a better profit on routes which they have a high amount of welsh passengers from CWL instead of BRS so hence the extra flights to CWL not BRS. Roger Lewis did say when the route was announced that they had renegotiated their terms and agreements and that may well have included fees but obviously only the parties involved will know the details of it.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Probably more a case of operating the FAO flights from CWL as well as from BRS rather than instead of. The same applies with the new Ryanair NQY-FAO flights.

Ryanair has to be careful because if they did begin diluting their BRS traffic too much to the extent that they really did start operating some flights from both CWL and NQY instead of BRS they would almost certainly be handing some of 'their' passengers to easyJet.

 

[Jerry]

Probably more a case of operating the FAO flights from CWL as well as from BRS rather than instead of. The same applies with the new Ryanair NQY-FAO flights.

Ryanair has to be careful because if they did begin diluting their BRS traffic too much to the extent that they really did start operating some flights from both CWL and NQY instead of BRS they would almost certainly be handing some of 'their' passengers to easyJet.

I suppose that is the balance they have to find between the 2 airport's. Unfortunately for CWL it will probably mean they may well be cautious looking at routes and frequency increase.