Cardiff: Route Development & Rumours

[Jerry]

Orlando. Was always the most popular long haul route in the past. I think Virgin Atlantic would be great on the route.

 

[Bcn_boy]

I am surprised that Virgin have not been tempted to the airport.

 

[Jerry]

Virgin Holidays have only recently setup a store in Cardiff. The store is offering packages using Qatar's flights which is good. I guess the airport will need to build up a relationship with Virgin Holidays and then persuade them to take the case to the airline to operate Orlando flights from Cardiff.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Virgin would be excellent. I think they are still trying to find their position in the market with Delta likely pulling a lot of the strings. The new A330-200s they'e taken from Air Berlin would be ideal, but not sure if they are going to be in a high premium or leisure config. I think CUN has been dropped from LGW so that could mean a reshuffle of aircraft. TUI are said to be very happy with SFB sales at BRS.
How many Virgin stores are there in South Wales?

 

[Jerry]

There is 1 store at the moment in the St David's centre in Cardiff. I'd imagine that sooner rather than later they'll open up one in Swansea.
The A330 200s are on a 5 year lease but are probably the perfect size for most of the routes at MAN. The 747s are currently used for leisure routes but i wonder if as the A350s arrive and the 787s get fixed they may look at configuring some of their A330 300s to a more leisure orientated configuration in the future.

 

[Severn]

Eastern Europe from CWL
This is a list of UK airports handling 3 million passengers a year at the top to to 500,000 passengers per year at the bottom. I've highlighted those airports with connections to Eastern Europe:
BHD - No flights to Eastern Europe - Airlines might have operational problems operating from here.
SOU - No flights to Eastern Europe - Airlines might have operational problems operating from here.
JER - No flights to Eastern Europe - Airlines might have operational problems operating from here.
CWL - No flights to Eastern Europe
DSA - Focus city for Wizz Air, will see 30x flights a week to 9x destinations.
SEN - EasyJet and Flybe operate to PRG and BUD
EXT - No flights to Eastern Europe
INV - No flights to Eastern Europe
GCI - No flights to Eastern Europe - Airlines might have operational problems operating from here.
IOM - No flights to Eastern Europe - Airlines might have operational problems operating from here.
PIK - RYR Base - will see 2x flights a week to Rzeszów
BOH - RYR Base - will see 2x flights a week to Krakow
NWI - No flights to Eastern Europe

Only four of these airports in the above list see flights to Eastern Europe this summer; Doncaster-Sheffield, Southend, Glasgow-Prestwick and Bournemouth.
Prestwick and Bournemouth are the only airports in this list with RYR bases so unsurprisingly have a small number of flights to Poland.
Southend is a primarily a London airport, with great connections to (East) London and therefore has an enormous catchment area. It sees 3x flights to Budapest a week with Flybe and and 11x flights to Prague per week (4x with EasyJet and 7x with Flybe).
Doncaster-Sheffield is a focus city for Wizz Air and has 30 flights per week to 5x cites in Poland, 2x cities in Romania, 1x in Latvia and 1x in Lithuania. I assume there must be a large population of Eastern-Europeans living in the catchment area which will be some of the reason for the number of flights. I know that Boston in Lincolnshire was named as having a large number of Poles living there in the 2011 census? I'm sure others can explain this more than me.

I've drawn up a table of all the routes and flights to Eastern Europe from airports outside of London. There is far too much data to give on here so instead I'll just focus on Poland for now.
Poland has the largest number of flights per week from airports in the UK outside of London. It is the most likely country that CWL would see a route to in the future. However, only four airlines operate routes from the UK outside of London to Poland; Ryanair, Wizz Air, easyJet and Jet2.
Ryanair operates 128 flights per week on 50 routes to Poland from UK airports outside of London.
Wizz Air operates 45 flights per week on 14 routes to Poland from UK airports outside of London.
easyJet operates 17 flights per week on 5 routes to Poland from UK airports outside of London.
Jet2 operates 6 flights per week on 3 routes to Poland from UK airports outside of London.

Jet2 and easyJet only operate from their own bases in the UK to airports in Eastern Europe. Ryanair are the same however it does operate to NCL and ABZ which are not bases to various destinations in Eastern Europe. Wizz Air therefore are the more likely contender to open up a new route to CWL, but with the many sensible posts on this it seems unlikely given their presence in BRS and the large competition in BRS from EZY and RYR (in the below list you can see BRS has the highest number of flights per week to Poland from anywhere outside London except for Liverpool).
Krakow and Warsaw see the most flights from the UK followed by Gdansk and Wroclow. I'd say Krakow would be the most likely contender given the large numbers of tourists drawn there. If flybe were to base a forth aircraft in CWL in 2019 then another options could be PRG and BUD given they operate these routes from SEN currently. These destinations would more likely be outbound tourists to these cities rather than migrants going to and from home however so would fair similar to Berlin and Venice for example.

Just a quick run-down of which UK airports outside of London see the most weekly flights to Poland:
For a week in Summer 18, the list below shows the weekly flights and destinations from each UK airport to Poland
LPL - 27x flights per week to 9x destinations in Poland
BRS - 22x flights per week to 8x destinations
BHX - 21x flights per week to 9x destinations
EDI - 20x flights per week to 8x destinations
MAN - 20x flights per week to 7x destinations
DSA - 20x flights per week to 5x destinations
EMA - 16x flights per week to 5x destinations
BFS - 12x flights per week to 5x destinations
GLA - 12x flights per week to 5x destinations
LBA - 12x flights per week to 4x destinations
NCL - 8x flights per week to 4x destinations
BOH - 2x flights per week to 1x destination
PIK - 2x flights per week to 1x destination
ABZ - 2x flights per week to 1x destination

 

[Jerry]

Thank you @Severn really informative post!

 

[superking]

There is a large polish migrant workers in linconshire and the home counties due to the main growing area in the UK for vegatables of all sorts.The harvesting and package of this type of food is high labour intensive.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The unknown is still the post-Brexit scenario. How many eastern Europeans will be allowed into the UK and how many would want to come? Until that seems clearer Poland and the like might not be the most fertile ground for new routes and existing ones might feel the pinch too.

 

[Jerry]

Is there anywhere say like the CAA where stats are available to see how many people travel to a certain country from a certain area? Ie South Wales to Poland.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Is there anywhere say like the CAA where stats are available to see how many people travel to a certain country from a certain area? Ie South Wales to Poland.

I'm not aware of any such details being publicly available. If they were - and not just with South Wales and Poland - I think the fact would be known and accessible to those interested in the subject.

Obviously airlines will know the origin (or at least their booking address) of passengers it carries but might not know their final destination. So, for example, if someone flew from say Poznan to Bristol with Ryanair, the airline would have no idea whether that passenger was going to Bristol itself or further afield.

The only way to ascertain such passenger traffic trends is by survey, whether by an airport or an airline. The snag is if Airport A asks its catchment if they would like a route to Destination B many people would say that they would but if it was subsequently provided they might not use it, or might use it once.

 

[aviatorconcorde]

There is a large polish migrant workers in linconshire and the home counties due to the main growing area in the UK for vegatables of all sorts.The harvesting and package of this type of food is high labour intensive.

I think Boston is the most Brexit town in Britain. While many, many people voted for brexit for other issues other than immigration, I can't help think there is some colleration...

 

[Jerry]

More domestic routes on the way? The Welsh government is working with the UK government and EU to get more PSOs from Cardiff Airport which would have no APD.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-44237823

 

[aviatorconcorde]

More domestic routes on the way? The Welsh government is working with the UK government and EU to get more PSOs from Cardiff Airport which would have no APD.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-44237823

I really don't see what else could work from CWL. Direct ABZ and twice daily glasgow as suggested would be welcome. Apart from that they would be flying around empty planes.

 

[Jerry]

I really don't see what else could work from CWL. Direct ABZ and twice daily glasgow as suggested would be welcome. Apart from that they would be flying around empty planes.

I think this would be more to fill out the schedule of a 4th e jet. Double daily Glasgow maybe a 4 weekly LBA and 2 weekly Inverness. With Newcastle it could help Eastern go up to a 50 seater twice daily and then operate Aberdeen direct with a 50 seater as well. I'd be surprised if they considered Manchester especially with the frequent trains and it could dilute some of the hub traffic as well. It'll be interesting to see what happens!

 

[Jerry]

Routes suggested in the article are Manchester, Leeds Bradford, Humberside, Glasgow, Aberdeen, London, Inverness, Newquay and Norwich.

 

[Jerry]

WalesOnline article mentions looking at bigger aircraft on the VLY route and maybe a stop off on the way as well.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/busin...-plans-14701570.amp?__twitter_impression=true

 

[Cardiffbay]

WalesOnline article mentions looking at bigger aircraft on the VLY route and maybe a stop off on the way as well.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/busin...-plans-14701570.amp?__twitter_impression=true

I guess these routes (if they happen) would be sold with Qatar code shares?

 

[Jerry]

I guess these routes (if they happen) would be sold with Qatar code shares?

I don't know. I suppose it depends if PSO routes can have codeshares on them.

 

[superking]

Isnt the VLY route pegged at a 19 seat aircraft due terms of the pso. Train service to Man is frequent seevices per day so there would be no pso on that leg from CWL.