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.
I think having APD devolved would be a good incentive but it isn't a complete guarentee of success or a guarentee of attracting an airline. Northern Ireland is an example of that as they have long haul APD devolved and Norwegian and United didn't stick around.
Only time will tell whether the WG is ever successful in attracting the other 2 routes it wants.
 
I think having APD devolved would be a good incentive but it isn't a complete guarentee of success or a guarentee of attracting an airline. Northern Ireland is an example of that as they have long haul APD devolved and Norwegian and United didn't stick around.
Only time will tell whether the WG is ever successful in attracting the other 2 routes it wants.
The original reason the UK government axed long haul APD on routes from Northern Ireland was to try to make it easier for BFS to compete with Dublin on United's (earlier Continental before the two airlines merged) Newark route. That didn't have the desired affect and so in a last-ditch attempt to save the BFS-EWR link the Northern Ireland Executive came up with two-thirds of a £9 million payment to United (spread over three years) to keep the route going.

However, the European Commission ruled that such a payment was a breach of EU state aid rules and part of the money that had been given to the airline was returned and the route axed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37834823

The Northern Ireland government expressed surprise at the EC ruling: their surprise surprised me at the time because as soon as I read about the money I thought it could not possibly comply with EU state aid rules.

Once (if) the UK leaves the EU it will depend on what attitude the UK government of the day takes in regard to competition issues and whether in general something similar to the EU state aid rules will remain.
 
This is a reply I received from WestJet inquiring about a potential route to CWL:
Welcome to forum4airports ElSupremo. Definitely would be nice to see Westjet at CWL in the future. I know they are going to be deploying their MAX8s across the pond this year. Whether in the long term they will look at using them for new routes to the UK only they know! I'd be very surprised if the airport hasn't at least sent them a proposal and tried to engage them! Hopefully one day we'll see them landing at CWL!
 
Welsh government is not happy the UK government is with holding the applications they filed for without a satisfactory explanation.
I wouldn't be surprised if they filed it under B for bin!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-47260050
If they did receive permisison to operate some or all these routes it would be interesting to see which airline/s would put their hat in the ring, given the present state of the industry, particularly with smaller airlines.

Would the removal of APD and four-year exclusivity be enought to tempt anyone? The WG said they would provide no other subsidies other than modest marketing.
 
If they did receive permisison to operate some or all these routes it would be interesting to see which airline/s would put their hat in the ring, given the present state of the industry, particularly with smaller airlines.

Would the removal of APD and four-year exclusivity be enought to tempt anyone? The WG said they would provide no other subsidies other than modest marketing.
The only contenders would be Eastern Airways, Loganair and Flybe. I don't see Ryanair, EasyJet or BA being interested.
 
I recently read that Great Western Railway is to increase the Cardiff London service to three per hour from the autumn 2019 timetable up from the present 2 per hour.. The electrification of the line will be completed from Swindon through to Cardiff by then ,which will result in reduction in journey time of 15 minutes. Cardiff London by air is a non starter.
 
Do we really need a flight to Manchester?

Out of the ones highlighted in the BBC article, Aberdeen and doubling Glasgow are likely the only ones worth doing in my opinion.
I recently read that Great Western Railway is to increase the Cardiff London service to three per hour from the autumn 2019 timetable up from the present 2 per hour.. The electrification of the line will be completed from Swindon through to Cardiff by then ,which will result in reduction in journey time of 15 minutes. Cardiff London by air is a non starter.
It would be nice to have Inverness even for the summer. We won't see London back no matter what the politicians want. Aberdeen is back onsale on the Flybe website as a 1 stop via NCL. Manchester would be good access to the north and might give some more 1 stop routes that won't work. But personally i think the airport needs to be looking to develop more european routes rather than domestic routes.
 
It would be nice to have Inverness even for the summer. We won't see London back no matter what the politicians want. Aberdeen is back onsale on the Flybe website as a 1 stop via NCL. Manchester would be good access to the north and might give some more 1 stop routes that won't work. But personally i think the airport needs to be looking to develop more european routes rather than domestic routes.

Inverness would probably be a good one for the Summer. I can’t see Manchester ever working though, There’s 2 trains an hour from cardiff central for most of the day that takes you right to Manchester Piccadilly for a 3 hour 30 minute journey.
 
If TUI were going to operate Turkey in the winter it would be Dalaman but it is unlikely they will, Paphos next winter will run into December i believe. Many of the routes were cut for the 1st and into 2nd weeks of February i believe but some weren't routes like Chambery and Geneva for instance. Thomas Cook have begun Turkey in April so maybe TUI might look in the future at starting earlier but a lot of the routes they do from CWL are linked to cruises so they might not be able to.
Doha is a bit of a disappointment as i was hoping it would be over 6000 at least but we'll need to see how it grows in the future to judge it. Amsterdam continues to grow so hopefully in the long term we'll see expansion on the with more E190s and fingers crossed 737s.

March will have the boost of the extra KLM flight which will be interesting to see the growth on that and the Irish rugby flights as well so will do better.
The quoted post is in today's CWL CAA stats thread but rather than go slightly off topic in that thread I thought I would continue with a narrower part of the points raised here.

If the new owners of Flybe decide that their strategy does not include ski flights that would obviously leave CWL potentially with none this coming winter. I wonder if TUI would look to taking them on. If necessary, they could sell seats to other tour operators as well as selling their own.

I've looked back over the past 25 years at the CWL ski season and some interesting destinations cropped up at times. For example, in the late 1990s Toulouse and Lyon appeared with carriers such as British World and European Aviation. Chambery and Innsbruck were flown for many years from the earlier 90s (and possibly before that - I didn't go back that far) and the carrier for tour operators was mainly Flybe, in its previous incarnations as well as under the Flybe title. Lauda Air appeared one season on Innsbruck and Tyrolean was also used for several winters earlier this century and at the end of the last. Geneva cropped in the early 'noughties' for one season with British Midland and returned a bit later until the recession began to bite in 2010-2011. Chambery and Innsbruck also persisted until that time but there was then a gap until the Flybe base enabled them to operate flights themselves to GVA and CMF.

There is also the possibility of easyJet with GVA. They operate ski season flights to both Bournemouth and Southampton and year-round to Birmingham, none of which are bases.

Although CWL has never been a big market for ski flights the airport will not want the pre-Flybe base situation to return when there were none for a few years.
 
TUI I would guess may look at Chambery, I believe they operate it from Exeter.
Would Easyjet Switzerland look at Geneva? Yes they operate to BOH and SOU but Easyjets operation at BRS is so large they would they just consider adding the flights there instead.
One thing though is that if and it's a massive IF, CWL was able to attract Easyjet even just for 1 route it would be a massive PR coup for the airport which would negate a lot of the negativity of losing the Flybe base.
 
I suspect Ryanair would quite fancy a few more routes from Cardiff. Rome is a glaring example or does vueling fancy their chance. Bases in Paris and Rome
I don't think Vueling would be interested in Rome I'd imagine that CWL had already pitched it to them before and they weren't interested hence why Flybe ended up with operating it.
I think with Ryanair whether they take up Rome or not may depend on how BCN does as they are similar types of routes.
 
TUI I would guess may look at Chambery, I believe they operate it from Exeter.
Would Easyjet Switzerland look at Geneva? Yes they operate to BOH and SOU but Easyjets operation at BRS is so large they would they just consider adding the flights there instead.
One thing though is that if and it's a massive IF, CWL was able to attract Easyjet even just for 1 route it would be a massive PR coup for the airport which would negate a lot of the negativity of losing the Flybe base.

easyJet began a ski season SOU-GVA route a couple of years ago 'against' their own BOH-GVA ski route so they were presumably confident that the adjacent markets were viable with both.

Geneva is an important year-round easyJet route from BRS but in the ski season it reaches another level with 21 weekly rotations, including five on Saturdays. There was also a sixth on Saturdays in mid-February operated by easyJet Switzerland but it's not currently shown for February 2020. TUI and Thomas Cook also operate weekly ski season BRS-GVA flights.

Given their decision at SOU/BOH it must be regarded as not completely out of court that easyJet might try GVA from CWL as well. LBA used to have an easyJet GVA until a couple of years ago, with some of the flights operated by a BRS-based aircraft on a 'W' diagram.

I don't think Vueling would be interested in Rome I'd imagine that CWL had already pitched it to them before and they weren't interested hence why Flybe ended up with operating it.
I think with Ryanair whether they take up Rome or not may depend on how BCN does as they are similar types of routes.

I would not rule out Rome although I had the same thought as Jerry that the performance of the new FR CWL-BCN might have a bearing. Given that Ryanair has commenced a number of non-sun routes at BRS against easyJet (they've competed on the main sun routes for many years) including Venice MP that operates up to 12 x weekly between them (another possible FR contender for CWL?), it has seemed odd that they have not taken on easyJet on Rome with the latter seemingly content to retain its single daily service despite regular 'sold-outs'. So Rome could be tried at CWL with no risk of diluting a Ryanair BRS route and they might well take Welsh-based passengers away from easyJet.
 
Given their decision at SOU/BOH it must be regarded as not completely out of court that easyJet might try GVA from CWL as well. LBA used to have an easyJet GVA until a couple of years ago, with some of the flights operated by a BRS-based aircraft on a 'W' diagram.
It would be fantastic if the airport could get EZY to take over Geneva. The only problem i can see for the airport and this includes with Ryanair is that the airlines will now see the airport as desperate and may even want paying to launch new routes. For Ryanair it might be worth it if they could get more routes in the future but for a 1 route airline like EZY would be i'm not sure it would be.
 
Wouldn't you pay to get another 2-3 routes at double/three weekly to keep the airport stats in the black? Rome and Faro are an absolute must to keep at CWL. Faro has been one of Flybe's best routes, a reason why Ryanair came onboard to serve it. A seasonal Venice and Verona would work since Flybe carried good loads on them. Even ALC can be added to that list. Not to mention the canaries. The loss of Flybe's European routes can easily be mitigated by Ryanair adding a few more destinations and several flights. Time is ticking.
 
It would be fantastic if the airport could get EZY to take over Geneva. The only problem i can see for the airport and this includes with Ryanair is that the airlines will now see the airport as desperate and may even want paying to launch new routes. For Ryanair it might be worth it if they could get more routes in the future but for a 1 route airline like EZY would be i'm not sure it would be.
It's often said that Ryanair always drives a hard bargain which they probably do and are usually in a position to do so; rightly so from their perspective because the primary duty of company officers and directors is to do their best for their shareholders.

CWL's shareholders are really the tax payers of Wales and the dual raison d'etre that the government says is the purpose of owning the airport - to help build the Welsh economy and run a profitable airport - can sometimes clash if greater emphasis is put on one or the other.

If Ryanair did want to operate a number of mainly holiday routes with the only real dividend to the government-owned airport being an increase in airport passenger footfall, then that would clearly help the facility's profitability but would do little for the Welsh economy as passengers would be travelling abroad to spend their money. Obviously, the ideal solution would be to achieve a balance of routes where business travel and inbound tourism played an important part. Ryanair doesn't operate too many of these routes, unlike easyJet, and the ones that it does operate are not always the ones that fill a lot of seats, especially from smaller UK airports. One that immediately comes to mind and would almost certainly be viable at CWL is Dublin. It's worked before for Ryanair.
 
If the airport is to strike some sort of deal with Ryanair then a route like Rome would i think class one that could be considered an inbound route as well as an out bound route. One of the airports goals is to increase connectivity to Wales, that's why the Flybe base was so important. I do think that in any deal they would want to include routes like Milan or Berlin or Madrid, whether FR would want to is another question.
With Dublin would the airport prefer to attract Aer Lingus as they would be able to provide better connections across the Atlantic or would they think that the more Ryanair routes the better?
 
No question of me if flybe leave Dublin (they might find some of of operation ie like they use to do Glasgow-Cardiff-Paris) then the airport needs Aer Lingus. They can offer 2 or 3 flights a day with North American connections as where Ryanair would proberbly be once a day point to point only.
 

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9 trips in 9 days done 70 miles walked and over 23-00 photos taken with a large number taken at 20mph or above. Heavy rain on 1 day only
5 trips done and 45 miles walked,. Also the RAF has had 4 F35B Lightning follow me yesterday and today....
My plans got altered slightly as one of the minibus companies had to cancel 3 trips and refunded me but will be getting nice discount when I rebook them.
wondering why on my "holidays" I choose to get up 2 hours earlier than when going to work. 6 trips in 6 days soon coming up with 3 more days to sort out

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