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Are you a frequent flyer travelling through Cardiff Airport? Tell us what you think about Cardiff Airport and the services it provides.

Have you had problems with luggage, delays or cancellations at Cardiff Airport? Tell us about your experiences good or bad.
 
Re: Cardiff Wales Airport

A good experince I had about 4 years ago with luggage. I was flying back from JFK via AMS and was booked on the second flight from AMS back to CWL. When I arrived was waiting for my luggage and it didn't show. I went to the luggage office and there it was. It came on the earlier flight and was waiting for me. Boy was I chuffed!
 
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Re: Cardiff Wales Airport

SIR – For the past two years I have used various UK airports, such as Newcastle and Bristol.

Both of these have obviously invested and I noticed a big improvement in their facilities, with good shopping outlets and a choice of eating places.

I recently booked a flight from Cardiff airport for the first time in two years and was appalled at the poor facilities. Shopping opportunities are poor and the lack of eating options and the standard of the food was appalling for 2008.

More of a concern was that during the two hours we waited for our departure not one table was cleared by the over-worked bar staff who were expected to serve drinks, take meal orders and serve the food. We watched as people came and went trying to clear a space on the tables while the number of dishes and glasses piled up.

Come on, Cardiff airport, if you want to attract more people then you need to stop cutting corners with staff and invest.

I will definitely be looking at Bristol airport in the future.

This was in one of your local rags. I can't really comment on whether it's a fair comment because I have never been to the airport. What are peoples opinion on this person's appraisal of the airport?
 
Re: Cardiff Wales Airport

I can't comment on the current CWL facilities because I haven't used that airport for a few years. When I last did I was quite happy with it.

Funnily enough, in response to a report in the Bristol Evening Post this week re an article on some aspect of BRS (might have been the dearth of charter flights), a local commented that Bristol Airport 'is a dump' and he only used it as an airport of last resort, preferring to use Birmingham instead.
 
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Cardiff Airport set for increase in passenger numbers this summer

STAYCATION may be the buzzword for the travel industry this year, but not even the recession will stop an exodus from Wales this summer.

The term was coined to describe the cheap and cheerful trend for holidaymakers to enjoy the attractions of their locale rather than jetting off to more exotic destinations.

But after the Western Mail revealed yesterday that advance bookings for Welsh tourism operators were no better than for last year’s disastrous summer, the native holiday industry has suffered another blow with figures today showing a boost in the numbers of passengers expected to travel through Wales’ biggest airport.

The poor strength of the pound against the euro has failed to dampen holidaymakers’ enthusiasm for Europe’s sunniest destinations, with 11% more Welsh tourists set to head to the Canary Islands next month.

Destinations like Malaga, Southern Spain, a perennial favourite with sun-seekers, are also set to see visitor numbers rise.

Figures from airline BMIbaby reveal that 8% more tourists will head for the region next month, while other resorts like Menorca, also in Spain, have witnessed a significant increase in their advanced, year-on-year booking numbers.

The booking figures come just a day after tourism executives in Wales warned of dismal summer trading, with figures from Visit Wales revealing that more than half – 66% – of the country’s hoteliers, B&B and hostel owners reported their advanced bookings for 2009 being the same or down on 2008 levels.

But Crawford Rix, managing director of the low-cost flight group, said the figures were proof that Welsh tourists were still keen to enjoy exotic breaks abroad.

“We are seeing a strong demand from passengers for sunshine destinations, with Alicante, Palma and Malaga topping our lists from Cardiff,” Mr Rix said.

“Passenger load factors from Cardiff to Malaga are up 8%, and to Palma by 11% for travel in July, compared to the same month in 2008. This proves that people still want their summer sunshine holiday.”

With Wales set to bask in a rare Mediterranean-style heatwave this summer, the Association of British Travel Agents predicted that the number of Brits travelling abroad could fall by as much as 10%.

But the association’s Casia Zajac said last night that the situation could change, as historically UK tourists have been reluctant to ditch their overseas vacations.

Miss Zajac said: “It is very difficult to give this type of advanced prediction, as advanced bookings can change and often do so at a late stage.

“These figures for Wales are positive, however, and it seems that Spain and the Balearics are still popular despite the poor exchange rates.”

Each year, more than 10 million UK tourists flock to Spain, but travel experts think the region could see a slide in visitor numbers by as much as 20%.

Simon Calder, travel editor at The Independent, said: “People are expected to bypass countries like Greece, Spain and France, with most who chose to go abroad heading to Turkey.

“Spain will still be the number one destination, but would expect their numbers to fall by about two million.

“By comparison, I don’t think any UK destination has emerged as the most popular, I think people are just heading to rural and coastal towns and rejoicing in what Britain has to offer.”

For the first time in over a decade, Turkey – a holiday spot outside the costly eurozone – is expected to see its British visitor numbers hit the two million mark.

Travel writer David Atkinson said: “Turkey has seen a lot of modernisation, with hotels springing up in Istanbul and its other regions, and it has attracted a lot of attention because next year it will be the European city of culture, even though it isn’t in Europe.

“I think people feel that they can go there relatively cheaply, and with just a short flight, and get a completely different cultural experience,”

Holiday destinations like Croatia and Egypt are also expected to emerge as favourites in 2009, but industry critics belive that staycations – holidays within Britain – will prove popular.

“Staycation is still the buzz word within the industry, and this is where the main focus lies,” Mr Atkinson said.

A spokeswoman for Cardiff Airport said its figures were strong for destinations like the Balearics, Malta and Spain.

“Although it is early in the summer season we have seen strong load factors for holiday routes,” she said.

“Favourite destinations like the Canaries, Balearics, Greece, Cyprus and Malta are proving popular during the first week in June. We expect this to continue throughout June to September especially during the school summer holidays when the airport is at its busiest.”

Other popular destinations from the airport include Paris and Barcelona.

Source
 
Being Drunk & Disruptive Onboard Aircraft

During a 7am Flybe flight from Glasgow to Cardiff on Saturday 31st March 2012 Gavin Henson a ex Welsh International rugby player was involved in an incident during the flight.

News articles are suggesting that Gavin Henson was intoxicated and was being disruptive including throwing ice cubes around the cabin.

The events in my opinion raises the topic of passengers being disruptive and/or intoxicated on board aircraft which is a growing issue.
 
Lovely week away with Thomson in Majorca (3rd to 10th), probably the busiest I've seen the departure lounge actually in a good while , TOM, TCX and VY all to PMI, TOM to IBZ, KL to AMS, BE to EDI, DUB and VY to also to AGP, ALC, good to see a buzz around the place.

From the house to the departure lounge took 30 mins which was very pleasing, quick bag drop and a breeze through security, Boarding commenced at 5:50 at gate 13, and we were in the air at 6:28

I actually wasn't a great fan of TOM after last years pretty shoddy service in which the cabin crew looked liked they couldn't be bothered, however the crew on both outward and return legs were very very good, can always see when someone enjoys there job and is was the case here. Very surprised at how busy PMI is on a Wednesday compared to last year, seems the traffic has almost doubled, with all the uncertainty in the world seems people might be traveling closer to home rather than Turkey and of course after the events in Egypt and Tunisia.

Overall very pleasing expierence yet again, summer 17 will be interesting to see if there are any more developments and hopefully a new route or two from a new or current airline then it will certainly be very positive.

image.jpg
 
Lovely week away with Thomson in Majorca (3rd to 10th), probably the busiest I've seen the departure lounge actually in a good while , TOM, TCX and VY all to PMI, TOM to IBZ, KL to AMS, BE to EDI, DUB and VY to also to AGP, ALC, good to see a buzz around the place.

From the house to the departure lounge took 30 mins which was very pleasing, quick bag drop and a breeze through security, Boarding commenced at 5:50 at gate 13, and we were in the air at 6:28

I actually wasn't a great fan of TOM after last years pretty shoddy service in which the cabin crew looked liked they couldn't be bothered, however the crew on both outward and return legs were very very good, can always see when someone enjoys there job and is was the case here. Very surprised at how busy PMI is on a Wednesday compared to last year, seems the traffic has almost doubled, with all the uncertainty in the world seems people might be traveling closer to home rather than Turkey and of course after the events in Egypt and Tunisia.

Overall very pleasing expierence yet again, summer 17 will be interesting to see if there are any more developments and hopefully a new route or two from a new or current airline then it will certainly be very positive.

View attachment 3654
That's great from what I've heard from other people it sounds like the airport is having a good summer. With everything that's going on in Turkey Spain can only benefit. I'm flying out of CWL on the 29th so i'm looking forward to seeing what the revamped departure lounge looks like. With the problems in Turkey i do wonder if Thomson would be tempted to reduce that and introduce Italy instead?
 
That's great from what I've heard from other people it sounds like the airport is having a good summer. With everything that's going on in Turkey Spain can only benefit. I'm flying out of CWL on the 29th so i'm looking forward to seeing what the revamped departure lounge looks like. With the problems in Turkey i do wonder if Thomson would be tempted to reduce that and introduce Italy instead?

A good summer where as next summer will hopefully be an excellent one... Hope you have a great time Jerry, where abouts are you flying too ? Exactly, seems more or less every uk airport has gained atleast an additional PMI rotation due to certain ongoings.

I read this with TUI not so long ago, so seemingly more departures have been added from various airports for next summer:

Next summer Thomson and First Choice will also have over a million seats available for customers to book to the Balearics, as it looks to fly an extra 150,000* passengers into the sun drenched Mediterranean islands. The brands are working with key hoteliers such as Globales and Alua Resorts, to offer new differentiated and exclusive hotels to customers.

Turkey has been cut back from quite a few airports already this year and significantly from next year it seems especially BJV, even the Freebird CWL flight was cut back from starting in late May to July due to slow bookings, DLM has always been quite a strong performing summer route and is now the only Turkish route standing following the loss of BJV a couple of years ago, so essentialy with a TOM based its just the one weekly, I imagine if VRN is scheduled to operate next year then perhaps Thomson will take a percentage of seats for the summer, as for further Italian destinations essentially any growth will have to come from a further based aircraft or atleast part based where then you could have increased frequencies on routes and also introduce a new route or two, unfortunately I've said said quite a few times both charter companies have shown little sign that they want to expand and offer anything new, of course this is potential for an overseas based frame on behalf of TOM to operate a route e.g as Norweigan have done with TFS, although the opportunities remain fairly limited as to what a 3rd based aircraft could offer.

Many thanks for the review, Craig. You obviously had a great time and the turn around in CWL's fortunes is remarkable.

Just had a look at the departure boards on 3 August courtesy of South Wales Aviation Group and I see there were 12 departures before 0915.

http://cardiffstathan.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/boards-wednesday-03082016.html

Was a real nice break thanks Local :), was especially pleasing to see the departure lounge busy from young groups, families, to couples, very good also to see Vueling having 4 flights in a day, will be interesting to see what sort of summer they have been having when it comes to the breakdown of the Stats, which on the current scheme of things will be lucky to get them by Christmas! Hopefully will lead to frequency increases or perhaps a bonus of a FCO or IBZ route.
 
A good summer where as next summer will hopefully be an excellent one... Hope you have a great time Jerry, where abouts are you flying too ? Exactly, seems more or less every uk airport has gained atleast an additional PMI rotation due to certain ongoings.

I read this with TUI not so long ago, so seemingly more departures have been added from various airports for next summer:

Next summer Thomson and First Choice will also have over a million seats available for customers to book to the Balearics, as it looks to fly an extra 150,000* passengers into the sun drenched Mediterranean islands. The brands are working with key hoteliers such as Globales and Alua Resorts, to offer new differentiated and exclusive hotels to customers.

Turkey has been cut back from quite a few airports already this year and significantly from next year it seems especially BJV, even the Freebird CWL flight was cut back from starting in late May to July due to slow bookings, DLM has always been quite a strong performing summer route and is now the only Turkish route standing following the loss of BJV a couple of years ago, so essentialy with a TOM based its just the one weekly, I imagine if VRN is scheduled to operate next year then perhaps Thomson will take a percentage of seats for the summer, as for further Italian destinations essentially any growth will have to come from a further based aircraft or atleast part based where then you could have increased frequencies on routes and also introduce a new route or two, unfortunately I've said said quite a few times both charter companies have shown little sign that they want to expand and offer anything new, of course this is potential for an overseas based frame on behalf of TOM to operate a route e.g as Norweigan have done with TFS, although the opportunities remain fairly limited as to what a 3rd based aircraft could offer.



Was a real nice break thanks Local :), was especially pleasing to see the departure lounge busy from young groups, families, to couples, very good also to see Vueling having 4 flights in a day, will be interesting to see what sort of summer they have been having when it comes to the breakdown of the Stats, which on the current scheme of things will be lucky to get them by Christmas! Hopefully will lead to frequency increases or perhaps a bonus of a FCO or IBZ route.
I'm off to Portland Oregon in the US to see my girlfriend. CWL-AMS-SFO-PDX and return 10 days later PDX-LAX-AMS-CWL it's a long trip but KLM and Alaska and Delta are nice airlines with good service though i'm not flying with Delta this time and it's a long day but still cheaper and easier than going to LHR and preferable to Dublin because with Dublin i don't get to PDX till 22.00 PDT. and have a couple of hours waiting in DUB. The last time i went at the end of April they were still working on the bar section so it will be good to see it all finished. It would be good to see the pax loads for routes like VRN and part of wonders if Vueling did do a FCO or IBZ flight if Thomson and Thomas Cook could just use them for the flights. Wonder if Vueling have a southern Italy base? Though i have noticed Vueling are doing FCO and Orly flights for the six nations though the airport has really announced them.
 
Used the LCY service the last few days or so:

Wednesday 13:10 CWL to LCY - 24 PAX- 40 minutes

Sunday 17:15 CWL to LCY - 60 PAX- 44 minutes

Monday 20:10 LCY to CWL- 48 PAX- 43 minutes

Very very convenient service to use, the fact within a few minutes of landing you can be on the DLR heading towards the city is a very good selling point, actually noticed on yesterday's flight that most passengers originated from Canary Wharf and on Wednesdays a few connect in LCY to Luxembourg, within an hour and 20 minutes ( 2 hours involving check in) I had gone from Cardiff Airport to Victoria station which is very efficient.

View attachment 3971
 
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Fairly decent passenger numbers too. Our LCY flights (LBA) were canned just before the DLR opened but I believe it's made a huge difference.
 
Used the LCY-CWL service again last night:

17:40 LCY-CWL
20 PAX with 7 no shows

Flight again very pleasant, very quick flight with it only being about 35 mins or so.

Fares were fairly high on last nights service, pottentialy a good sign for yield, Janaury has always been a quiet month with regard to air travel, let's hope the loads remain at a decent level and the service remains sustainable into the future.
 
Thank you for the report, Craig.

So that I can get an idea of overall timings (in comparison with rail) how long before the flight leaves LCY do you realistically have to be at the airport? As with, say, getting the Underground to Paddington Station to catch the train I would want to build in some recovery time in case of delays on the Underground or DLR in the case of LCY, so perhaps the times travelling from central London to Paddington and LCY might be taken to be the same for this exercise.

Once on stand at CWL I assume it's only a few minutes from aircraft to terminal exit, assuming no hold luggage, and then 30 minutes to the centre of Cardiff?

I wonder how much quicker overall air is over train from central London to central Cardiff not that all passengers using air or train will always be going from city centre to city centre of course.
 
Realistically I'd say you need to be at the airport 30-40 minutes before departure, I myself arrived at 17:00, took 5 minutes to get through security very quick system in place there and then made my way to gate 22 where the gate was open, sitting down there until around 17:25 that's when boarding commenced as the aircraft literally sits just outside on the Tarmac.

There's a few ways to get from Central London to thr airport, I myself used the central line from Oxford Circus , changing at Bank for the DLR, and then a direct service towards LCY airport which took around 30 mins or so, I could have also used the jubilee line before changing at Canning Town for the DLR to get to the airport if indeed I was at another station e.g Westminster which takes a bit less time.

So around the 30 minute mark for travel to thr airport so leaving st the latest around 16:30 providing no delays, to give yourself a bit more time and be on the safe side I'd say between 16:00 and 16:15.

The aircraft usually arrives on stand number 1 or 3, which is essentialy right next to the domestic arrival exit, walking through to arrivals and then to the exit takes a few minutes, either the T9 service can take between 30-40 minutes into the centre of Cardiff, which is then located a few minutes from Cardiff central station, or of course family pickup or taxi services are used.

For myself the flight took of around 17:50 and by 18:50 I was home ( I live in a town around 15-20 minutes drive from the airport) perhaps overall it can be a bit longer, but for me 1 hour 50 door to door is really a no brainer with a much more relaxed journey, I'm not a great fan of GWR trains.
 
So that I can get an idea of overall timings (in comparison with rail) how long before the flight leaves LCY do you realistically have to be at the airport?
When i flew back to CWL from CDG via LCY from touchdown at LCY to flying out to CWL was 40 mins. LCY security was very quick, efficient and helpful. Obviously I didn't leave the terminal though so I don't know about the times to get around in London. One thing that does give me a concern if my travelling was time sensitive would the recent cancellations because of the fog.
 
Thank you again, Craig. It sounds made for you given where you live, and also for your observations, Jerry.

I have to admit I had my doubts about a LON-CWL route, especially given its history, but there are obvious advantages over the train from what you both say.

The airline and airport (both airports really) now have a full summer to market and promote this route so that it becomes a permanent fixture. That would be supremely ironic given that its genesis is the temporary closure of a rail route that is its biggest competitor.
 

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