Potential Routes

[Bcn_boy]

Was thinking that maybe you knew something...

 

[Jerry]

Wizair have more or less pulled out of the UK regions to concentrate on Luton. Also wizair have pulled routes from airports all over Europe as well. I cant see them doing any new airport to them to start services any time soon.
But what is being said about a Polish route or 2 sounds good. Watch this space.

Their UK operations apart from Luton consist of
Aberdeen-Gdansk
Belfast International-Vilnius
Birmingham-Budapest, Poznan, Warsaw, Wroclaw and Bucharest
Bristol-Katowice
Doncaster-Riga, Vilnius, Gdansk, Katowice, Lublin, Poznan, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Bucharest and Cluj
Glasgow-Budapest, Gdansk and Katowice
Liverpool-Gdansk, Katowice, Lublin and Warsaw
Gatwick-Bucharest
Some of those routes might be ending i believe Katowice is probably one but they still have a sizeable UK network. They have been chopping and changing as an airline as they are growing and evolving as an airline but there is no reason that the airport couldn't possibly attract them for a route or 2 if they get the right deal but i'd say that would be at least a couple of years away rather than the immediate future.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

If Wizz can't make BRS work, then CWL won't. As already stated they've cut a number of UK routes recently, so it's doubtful they would start new ones at an unknown Airport to them, when they could simply restart routes from the Airports they pulled out of.

 

[Jerry]

If Wizz can't make BRS work, then CWL won't.

I think at BRS they are up against stiff opposition from Ryanair which they wouldn't have at CWL and Cardiff would be a new route and different to BRS. Personally I think CWL still has a way to go before it can support Eastern European routes but just because they weren't successful at BRS doesn't mean that they couldn't be at CWL in the future.

 

[superking]

BMI Baby tried a few polish routes from CWL and could not get them to work and they had no compition as well.With brexit less than 12 months away now the polish have been leaving the UK shores in droves. It will put pressure on airlines with established rotations to make them work at a profit.So I think airlines that operate routes to Poland will be keeping a close eye on how they doing. Rather than open up routes from where ever to Poland they will either cut rotations or cut the route altogeatheras airlines in the business to make money and not a charity.

 

[Jerry]

Cardiff has had routes dropped in the past and many are now returning. An airline like Wizz may do better than one like BMI baby. Even with Brexit there will be still a large amount of eastern Europeans living and working here and Eastern Europe is a popular area for tourism.
Will be interesting to see if eastern European routes do return to Cardiff who will operate them Flybe? Or someone like Wizzair?

 

[Foxlimayankee]

I think at BRS they are up against stiff opposition from Ryanair which they wouldn't have at CWL and Cardiff would be a new route and different to BRS. Personally I think CWL still has a way to go before it can support Eastern European routes but just because they weren't successful at BRS doesn't mean that they couldn't be at CWL in the future.

I have to disagree. Bristol and Cardiff share the same market, with Bristol having a much larger share of the market due to its location. CWL will only be able to compete for its own market where demand is high and surplus to what is being provided in Bristol unless it has a distinct operational advantage (cargo, runway, political).
Im afraid CWL will always fall on the back of surplus supply from BRS. Excluding the obvious (as covered in the above exceptions) I can't see anything that CWL does that isnt already done at Bristol.
Wizz only competed with Ryanair to Warsaw. No other Airline competed on Kosice, Sofia (except charters) and Katowice. FR compete with EZY on a few city routes without issue and Wizz has as much pulling power in Eastern Europe as both of them. They pulled off routes in the UK not just Bristol. It was a national decision not a regional one. There is little chance CWL could pull that back unless they offer a stupid deal to Wizz, which being a low cost airline would likely have already had a decent deal from BRS. Offering silly deals to airlines just to get passengers through the door isn't good business sense for an airport.
It's also not about bums on seats. Eastern European routes tend to be fairly low fares with little ancillary revenue. Things like baggage, seats, on board sales of food and drink and duty free aren't great on these routes. You could sell 100 seats for £1 to Tenerife. If every person buys a bag, a seat, a drink and a snack on board you could be looking at another £50 on top per one way flight. You won't get the same to Eastern Europe or some city destinations. Sell 180 seats at £1 you'd be lucky to add on £10pp on average ancillary revenue. £5100 TFS vs £1980 (rough example!) That's exactly what Baby encountered

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Wizz Air at BRS

Wizz passenger numbers weren't disastrous from BRS by any means. These are the monthly load factors from April to September 2016.

Katowice 86.2, 87.0, 90.8, 93.8, 95.8, 75*
Sofia 82.8, 84.2, 87.0, 90.3, 94.6, 86.8
Kosice 77.7, 84.7, 91.4, 92.1, 94.9, 87.0
Warsaw Chopin* 87.2, 89.5, 96.0, 95.7, 87.6
Warsaw Modlin* (Ryanair) 98, 97, 99, 98, 96

* Chopin not started by Wizz until May 2016 so I've given Ryanair's stats from that month too. I think also that a sector or rotation did not operate in September that year on the Katowice route because 75% monthly load factor is out of kilter with Wizz's BRS-KTW route at other times.

2017 was broadly the same although Kosice was axed from June last year and, in fact, from early summer this year the other Kosice routes are being dropped except Luton, and the axed routes include Doncaster-Sheffield and Tel Aviv with the last named the replacement for the BRS route, so Tel Aviv lasted only about a year.

The last month of Wizz's Sofia and Warsaw Chopin to BRS was October last year when the former carried 3,453 passengers, ave load 191.8, load factor of 83.4% on the 230-seat A321 and the latter 2,869 passengers, ave load 159.4, load factor 88.5% on the 180-seat A320. As a comparison, in that month Ryanair carried 6,394 passengers on its Warsaw Modlin route, ave load 177.6, load factor 94% on the 189-seat B738.

So it doesn't seem to be the loads at BRS that prompted the exit of three of Wizz's four routes there, neither is there any real evidence that Ryanair was a factor. Either the yield was not to Wizz's liking and they felt they could get better returns elsewhere, or it was a policy decison with Brexit looming.

CWL would probably have to get very high loads to at least equal BRS's Wizz performance and at the same time somehow bring in a yield that satisfied Wizz.

Even Ryanair has axed routes at BRS with consistently high monthly load factors into the 90%s - Bratislava and Katowice (now operated by Wizz) come instantly to mind and Riga wasn't far behind either.

bmi baby operated to Warsaw Chopin in 2008 against easyJet's route to the same airport from BRS. Both were axed at the end of that summer, ostensibly because of the high cost of operating into Chopin. The major recession was also beginning to negatively affect many of the world's economies.

 

[Jerry]

CWL would probably have to get very high loads to at least equal BRS's Wizz performance and at the same time somehow bring in a yield that satisfied Wizz.

I honestly don't think it would be about matching Bristol but tailoring Eastern European routes for CWL's catchment and for what that area would offer Eastern European tourists and an airline like Wizz a deal that makes them profit. It may be as well that any routes would be seasonal and even a short season as well, an example of that would be Madrid.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I honestly don't think it would be about matching Bristol but tailoring Eastern European routes for CWL's catchment and for what that area would offer Eastern European tourists and an airline like Wizz a deal that makes them profit. It may be as well that any routes would be seasonal and even a short season as well, an example of that would be Madrid.

But how could they do that without very high load factors which is what airlines like Wizz need for their type of operation? As Foxlimayankee points out, Eastern European routes don't generate much ancillary revenue so the loads need to be high consistently.

 

[Jerry]

But how could they do that without very high load factors which is what airlines like Wizz need for their type of operation? As Foxlimayankee points out, Eastern European routes don't generate much ancillary revenue so the loads need to be high consistently.

How do we know that they won't acheive high loads? Yes it's about the yield in the end but if their costs flying into CWL are lower then that will no doubt help those yields be higher.
In the end the likelihood of Wizz turning up is slim but a couple of years ago people would've said that about IB Express and Qatar Airways, if CWL does end up with eastern europe in the long term personally i think it would be more than likely Flybe would operate them.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Madrid isn't Eastern Europe. The Spanish market is completely different. EZY do daily MAD flights. IB express has the bonus of connections but already started late this summer. That's a sign in itself but hopefully that will improve in time. Wizz operated routes a couple of times a week and those routes pretty much covered the entire southwest, wales and even the midlands with the main alternative being LTN. Wizz also have bigger fish to fry than risking at CWL.
Had the Welsh government not been involved and with cargo not being available at BRS. QR would be at BRS.
The last thing CWL needs is more trial and error routes and Airlines. Growth has been steady and seems to be doing ok. The next step is to make current routes sustainable and then move into new markets. Markets that will likely already be in demand in the Southwest and even more likely already be available at BRS. Sadly unless an already established foreign airline were to gamble on CWL, BRS and probably EZY or FR will always be the place these new routes will start for the region.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

How do we know that they won't acheive high loads? Yes it's about the yield in the end but if their costs flying into CWL are lower then that will no doubt help those yields be higher.

Perhaps I didn't phrase my remark succinctly. I wasn't saying there would not be high loads, but rather that there would have to be high loads plus something else if Wizz was to be satisfied, assuming the airine was dissatisfied with its returns at BRS where the loads were pretty high for the most part as I showed in an earlier post.

BRS does have the advantage of a larger core catchment and a physical location between two other catchments (South Wales and the further South West England) as well as seeing passengers from the South Midlands and from the M4 corridor. CWL would be relying largely on its core catchment to fill Wizz's aircraft.

A decade ago the then CWL management recognised publicly that the airport would have to attract a significant proportion of passengers from outside South Wales if it was to grow substantially, with the two prime areas (obvious really) identified as the West of England and the South Midlands. So Wizz at CWL would have to be reaching out to those areas.

I'm not saying it could not be done, merely that it would be more difficult and Foxlimayankee has already pointed out the differences between the Easern European and Spanish markets.

You've suggested that lower operating costs into CWL might be a factor. They might but we will never know the agreements between a particular airline and an airport as the low-cost airlines in particular don't usually pay the advertised airport charges. I suppose that if the WG as CWL owners really wanted Wizz they could enter into a Flybe-type agreement but I have no idea what they would have to pay to secure it. Even as an airport owner the WG cannot violate state aid rules which are likely to broadly mirror the current EC regulations after Brexit, at least in the short term (according to the noises from the Westminster government). Brexit is another serious consideration for an airline looking to open new Eastern European routes. That dust might have to settle before any major decisions are taken.

 

[aviatorconcorde]

But how could they do that without very high load factors which is what airlines like Wizz need for their type of operation? As Foxlimayankee points out, Eastern European routes don't generate much ancillary revenue so the loads need to be high consistently.

Valid point - Eastern Europeans seem to live in the UK with very few possessions so possibly wouldn't check a bag, nor pay for seat selection, or go mad with the buy on board.

 

[superking]

There is a lot of Polish drive to Poland as they say its cheaper than flying.

 

[aviatorconcorde]

There is a lot of Polish drive to Poland as they say its cheaper than flying.

Interesting - I suppose if 4 or 5 go in one car and split the costs I can understand why it would be cheaper.

 

[Cardiffbay]

Interesting - I suppose if 4 or 5 go in one car and split the costs I can understand why it would be cheaper.

Drove it last year. Cardiff to Gdansk. 3 tanks of fuel there and back plus £80 for the ferry. Flying there from Stsndted next week £200 return for 2. Bristol was £600!

 

[Jerry]

Sounds similar (apart from the ferry) to the drive my girlfriend does down to California to see her relatives. Usually takes her about 12 hours of driving one way.

 

[aviatorconcorde]

If each contributor could pick one route that the airport is missing from its route network, what would it be and why?

I'll kick off with Ibiza. Heaps of people I know travel to Bristol to visit ibiza with ryanair...I think a trick is being missed here not have a regular lo co on the route.

 

[Sean123]

I allways thought that ibiza would be the logical next step for vueling as i think they have a summer base there but dont know how many aircraft also malta , surprised it didnt make the tui expansion & maybe prague and orlando ?