Cardiff: Route Development & Rumours

[Jerry]

I think Madrid went onsale at the beginning of December last year. There was a rumour that if i remember correctly that Debra Barber went out to Madrid to persuade them to operate another summer.

 

[Jerry]

Wishlist for 2019
As we are coming towards the end of 2018 it's made me think of what i would like to see happen at the airport next year including routes announced for the winter and 2020. Obviously what i want will probably be a lot different to what will happen but no harm in dreaming a little!
1. Flybe to survive what they are going through and come out of it stronger and add more aircraft and routes to the Cardiff base.
2. Ryanair to keep expanding at Cardiff not just by adding routes like say Lanzarote but added frequencies on current routes.
3. New routes to Southern France ie Bordeaux or Nice.
4. A East Coast US route Orlando/NYC/Toronto.
5. TUI to operate the Dreamliner in the summer whether long haul or short haul.
6. KLM to add a 4th lunch time flight.
7. The plans for the new terminal to be released and a start of construction date announced.
8. Probably the most important one. A platform for plane spotters as I'm fed up of standing on a bin!

 

[Sean123]

Like no 8 jerry, I spent many an early evening with the kids atop the terminal on the old feeding them pop & crisps!

 

[Jerry]

Like no 8 jerry, I spent many an early evening with the kids atop the terminal on the old feeding them pop & crisps!

Yep I've heard many people wish that the terrace was back. It would be nice to have a proper viewing platform.

 

[Jerry]

Cardiff now appears in the drop down on Turkish Airlines app. Interesting!

 

[aviatorconcorde]

Cardiff now appears in the drop down on Turkish Airlines app. Interesting!

Really!? I do hope thats a glitch.

 

[aviatorconcorde]

Really!? I do hope thats a glitch.

Saying that. So does Bristol and Aberdeen.

 

[Jerry]

Saying that. So does Bristol and Aberdeen.

Though it would be nice to see Turkish Airlines at CWL I'd have thought that it'll be a codeshare with Flybe via Paris or Dublin or Edinburgh.

 

[CWL94]

BRS, ABZ + NCL are on there through BM codeshares. CWL doesnt have BM flights; so no reason for it to be that!

The likes of SOU, EXT, BHD etc are not on the drop down, meaning that a BE codeshare is unlikely too.

Something to keep an eye on im sure

 

[Jerry]

I would be very shocked if CWL attracted Turkish Airlines! Will be interesting to see what develops.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re the speculation about Jet2, doesn't look likely in the foreseeable future according to this article.

https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/news/jet2com-focuses-on-current-operations-with-100th-aircraft-16724

The Jet2 CEO stated, "What we want to do is strengthen our current nine bases and make those as strong as we can in the short term. We’re not looking at any more bases."

 

[Jerry]

It definitely would be nice to see Jet2 operating out of Cardiff but one thing it does help with them not here is with TUI Thomas Cook and Ryanair expansion and you do wonder if the airport would prefer those airlines to expand in the short term. Especially Ryanair with Flybe ending the Italian routes in September and the base survival under a cloud i do wonder if the airport would want to concentrate it's efforts on Ryanair and Jet2 would just be a distraction for them and wonder if at the moment Jet2 not expanding into this area might actually be a good thing in the short term.

 

[Jerry]

A WG forecast for 3 long haul routes to be served out of CWL done in 2017 was posted on a facebook page earlier and was definitely interesting. The 3 routes were New York, Toronto and Middle East. We know the Middle East was achieved with Qatar Airways launching Doha.
The other 2 routes obviuosly haven't been.
For New York the airlines mentioned are Norwegian and JetBlue and the forecast is done on a 189 seater aircraft and the forecast was for a 3 weekly service bringing in an estimated 47,326 passengers with an 80% LF to begin with.
For Toronto the airline mentioned is WestJet and the forecast in done on a 136 seater aircraft (they do have 737 700) and the forecast was for a 3 weekly service bringing in an estimated 34,054 passengers with an 80% LF to begin with.
It's definintely intersting as if the airport had secured either then CWL would've been just over the 1.6 million mark in 2018 if i remember correctly!
Hopefully talks are ongoing with these airlines and one day we'll see them flying out of CWL!
View attachment 12060

 

[TheLocalYokel]

A WG forecast for 3 long haul routes to be served out of CWL done in 2017 was posted on a facebook page earlier and was definitely interesting. The 3 routes were New York, Toronto and Middle East. We know the Middle East was achieved with Qatar Airways launching Doha.
The other 2 routes obviuosly haven't been.
For New York the airlines mentioned are Norwegian and JetBlue and the forecast is done on a 189 seater aircraft and the forecast was for a 3 weekly service bringing in an estimated 47,326 passengers with an 80% LF to begin with.
For Toronto the airline mentioned is WestJet and the forecast in done on a 136 seater aircraft (they do have 737 700) and the forecast was for a 3 weekly service bringing in an estimated 34,054 passengers with an 80% LF to begin with.
It's definintely intersting as if the airport had secured either then CWL would've been just over the 1.6 million mark in 2018 if i remember correctly!
Hopefully talks are ongoing with these airlines and one day we'll see them flying out of CWL!
View attachment 12060

I wonder why the forecast was re-posted on Facebook at the present time. Was it re-posted by the airport?

Given the loss of a number of transatlantic routes from other places in recent years with an airport as large as BHX currently without any scheduled services to North America, it doesn't seem the most opportune time to air the topic again, on Facebook............or does it? It's always a mug's game trying to second guess the aviation industry.

 

[Jerry]

Was it re-posted by the airport?

No just in a conversation regarding routes by a poster.

 

[Jerry]

I wonder why the forecast was re-posted on Facebook at the present time. Was it re-posted by the airport?

Given the loss of a number of transatlantic routes from other places in recent years with an airport as large as BHX currently without any scheduled services to North America, it doesn't seem the most opportune time to air the topic again, on Facebook............or does it? It's always a mug's game trying to second guess the aviation industry.

I thought it was useful info about what airlines they seem to be targeting as the big 4 aren't there. Securing a North American destination would be very hard imo as the airlines all seem to be gravitating towards the big airports but CWL may have a better chance than many others even if those chances are slim!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I thought it was useful info about what airlines they seem to be targeting as the big 4 aren't there. Securing a North American destination would be very hard imo as the airlines all seem to be gravitating towards the big airports but CWL may have a better chance than many others even if those chances are slim!

Do you think that CWL's chances are better than some because of the involvement of the WG, as was demonstrated with Qatar?

 

[Jerry]

Do you think that CWL's chances are better than some because of the involvement of the WG, as was demonstrated with Qatar?

Yes, i think having a government promoting and lobbying on behalf of airports in a country does help especially if they are willing to provide incentives or some sort of help through marketing deals.
I think that it helps more with scheduled airlines from abroad than it does with domestic charter or scheduled airlines who aren't looking at airports like Cardiff and Wales as a destination for business and tourists wheres JetBlue and Westjet and Qatar would be, Norwegian might be a bit different as you could say they are domestic and international!
BHX and BRS will always lack that support unless the country goes federal!
With Qatar i do think out of the 3 target routes they are the easiest to achieve.
It was also interesting to note that New York was the only US route on there with no Chicago or Atlanta or Philadelphia mentioned which are big hubs that Carwyn Jones said would be more likely than New York.

 

[Jerry]

To expand on my post above i do wonder if the WG hinders Cardiffs ability to attract scheduled short haul airlines like say Lufthansa or retain the likes of Iberia Express because it doesn't consider or can't consider those routes for any sort of marketing deals like it did with Qatar.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Yes, i think having a government promoting and lobbying on behalf of airports in a country does help especially if they are willing to provide incentives or some sort of help through marketing deals.
I think that it helps more with scheduled airlines from abroad than it does with domestic charter or scheduled airlines who aren't looking at airports like Cardiff and Wales as a destination for business and tourists wheres JetBlue and Westjet and Qatar would be, Norwegian might be a bit different as you could say they are domestic and international!
BHX and BRS will always lack that support unless the country goes federal!
With Qatar i do think out of the 3 target routes they are the easiest to achieve.
It was also interesting to note that New York was the only US route on there with no Chicago or Atlanta or Philadelphia mentioned which are big hubs that Carwyn Jones said would be more likely than New York.

You have a point about having your own government helping to oil some wheels being advantageous. Even with such help a route still has to be viable and background support from the government as well as route support from its own airport company can only go so far.

Whether that would stretch as far, as for example, getting a New York service before somewhere like BHX remains to be seen. There seems little doubt that abolition of APD would be a strong support as an airline could, and probably would, keep most/all of the APD equivalent in order to make a yield acceptable. I don't see fares coming down much in such circumstances.