CAA Provisional Statistics Update

[Em0866]

Hi Local
This is good news. I suspect with the second Flybe aircraft based from the end of this month and onwards we'll see a further increase in pax figures from September onwards...even during the winter months. At least it should be an improvement on last winter. Keep fingers crossed!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Hello E m

I agree - there seems little doubt that passenger numbers will rise substantially for the remainder of the year.

A quick look at some of the Flybe routes suggests that loads are very promising indeed on many with Milan (MXP) in particular surprising me.

I've done this quickly so there might be the odd error and I've assumed that the timetable is still as announced at the beginning of the season.

Paris Cdg 3378 passengers, average load 93.8, load factor just under 79.5%.

Cork 572, 71.5, 60.5%

Edinburgh 5634, 90.9, 77%

Faro 2030, 78.1, 66.2%

Glasgow 2522, 70, 59.4%

Milan (MXP) 598, 74.8, 63.4%

All the above were on the 118-seat E 195.

Dusseldorf 359, 44.9, 57.6% (Q 400) - 8% fewer passengers than in July 2014

Belfast City 4032, 65, 83.3% (Q 400) - 1% fewer passengers than in July 2014

Jersey 1917 passengers, average load 73.7. I didn't have time to calculate the average load as this route sees a mix of aircraft: E 195 on Mondays and Fridays and Q 400 on Saturdays.

Dublin competes with EIR so I couldn't establish the Flybe numbers. However, overall passenger numbers rose from 6289 in July 2014 to 9262 in July this year so Flybe must have had a significant effect.

All in all a very satisfactory situation.

I've copied this post to the CWL Flybe thread for continuity.

 

[Em0866]

This is all very interesting and in time these loads will improve even more once they become most established....I have no doubt about that. I am interested to see how the next few months develop

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The loads should improve as you say, although I have one caveat. Fares have been very enticing on many of the routes and may have to rise in time if similar routes from other Flybe bases are a guide.

There may be an element of introductory fares and it's not known how much the Wales Assembly Government's support is helping to keep fares at attractive levels.

Obviously such support cannot go on for ever although by then it's to be hoped that more people will have become aware of the routes (and I suspect others not yet announced) which will help build them even if fares do have to rise.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Snapshot Tuesday 1 September 2015

Today is the first non public holiday day of operations following the arrival of the second based Flybe E 195.

I looked at the arrivals board today and found 31 arrivals between midnight and midnight. They were:

8 Flybe E 195
7 Thomson B 738
3 Thomas Cook A 320
3 Vueling A 320
3 KLM C'hopper F 70 (I thought that one daily rotation was E 190-operated)
2 Eastern J 41
2 Stobart Air (for EIR) ATR 72
1 Links Air J 31 (usually 2 rotations to Valley)
1 Air Malta A 320
1 Flybe Q 400

The board looks healthier than for a long time.

These facts are courtesy of the South Wales Aviation Group website which includes all details of all these flights including departure airport; flight number; scheduled and actual arrival time; type and reg of aircraft; notes of interest re some of the flights.

 

[Em0866]

Thank you Local. This is a good shot in the arm for CWL with the extra Flybe aircraft now based there. I hope that the extra aircraft will translate into an increase in pax figures. Of course we won't know the impact until October when the September figures are released.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

E'm - I make today's programme worth around 8,000 available seats (arrivals and departures combined).

If we take that figure each day through the month it comes to 240,000. Clearly not every day is the same because of timetabling and frequencies. Furthermore, Vueling doesn't operate every day, neither does Air Malta. Nevertheless, it might be reasonable to suggest a figure of around 220,000 available seats for the month.

If we consider an across the board seat take-up of 70% that would equate to 154,000 passengers in the month of September. The charter flights and Vueling would be noticeably higher than 70% but we'll keep it for the purpose of the exercise.

70% of 220,000 equates to 154,000. September 2014 saw 123,000 so that would mean an increase of 31,000 passengers or, put another way, an increase of 25% on September 2014.

This sort of rise continued over this year and next year would see a 2016 total of not far off 1.3 mppa. That's without any other developments that might be announced, and I might even have under-estimated September's total.

Taking Severnside as a region we still haven't returned to 2008's passenger numbers when a combined total of 8.208 million was carried (BRS 6.229 : CWL 1.979). The latest CAA stats (for July) show the current 12-month combined total as 7.576 million (BRS 6.553 : CWL 1.023). So taking this as a yardstick (and it's not fanciful as the economy is now improving all the time) there is plenty of room and scope for growth at CWL as well as that taking place across the river.

 

[Em0866]

Let's revisit this in October when the September figures are available. It will be interesting to see what they show. Whatever they show it will be another improvement on September 2014. I am interested in the August figures when they are released too. And also looking forward into the winter months too.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Let's revisit this in October when the September figures are available. It will be interesting to see what they show. Whatever they show it will be another improvement on September 2014. I am interested in the August figures when they are released too. And also looking forward into the winter months too.

Indeed. But at least the figures will be well into positive territory.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Let's revisit this in October when the September figures are available. It will be interesting to see what they show. Whatever they show it will be another improvement on September 2014. I am interested in the August figures when they are released too. And also looking forward into the winter months too.

Thinking further about this, September and October will be skewed from the norm (in a very positive way) because of the Rugby World Cup. Group fixtures at the Millennium will be:

19 Sept Ireland v Canada
20 Sept Wales v Uruguay
23 Sept Australia v Fiji
1 October Wales v Fiji
2 October New Zealand v Georgia
11 October France v Ireland

17 October Quarter Final
18 October Quarter Final

I typed the matches involving France and Ireland in bold as they are likely to bring tens of thousands of supporters from afar, many of whom will arrive via CWL.

The Quarter Finals may also be a bonanza for CWL depending on which countries are involved. As the winners and runners-up of Groups C and D will feature it seems pretty certain that France and Ireland will appear again playing against probably New Zealand and Argentina.

Incidentally, from a rugby perspective Group A appears to be a group of death with England, Wales and Australia all chasing two quarter final places.

 

[Em0866]

The figures for September and October will be encouraging, even with the added Flybe aircraft. Both these months should be the best figures they've had at CWL for September and October they've had for quite a while

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Let's revisit this in October when the September figures are available. It will be interesting to see what they show. Whatever they show it will be another improvement on September 2014. I am interested in the August figures when they are released too. And also looking forward into the winter months too.

The figures for September and October will be encouraging, even with the added Flybe aircraft. Both these months should be the best figures they've had at CWL for September and October they've had for quite a while

I've had a look back to 2003 the first full year of bmi baby and have set out the monthly figures for August, September and October each year since then. I've also included the annual passenger figures for each year.

2003 (1.900 mppa)

August 229,454
September 218,514
October 182,842

2004 (1.873)

219,255
204,939
182,476

2005 (1.765)

220,596
206,382
175,843

2006 (1.993)

256,343
237,040
197,353

2007 (2.094)

264,347
245,579
209,515

2008 (1.979)

246,710
220,907
182,198

2009 (1.625)

199,787
181,775
148,720

2010 (1.398)

177,107
161,922
135,464

2011 (1.208)

152,039
143,131
112,084

2012 (1.013)

129,409
122,751
98,673

2013 (1.057)

148,078
132,675
100,180

2014 (1.019)

135,894
122,927
92,323

It will be seen that 2012 was the low point during this period with a slight recovery in 2013, only to be followed by a small drop in 2014.

The 264,451 in August 2007 is a record month for CWL at any time. The lowest monthly figure in the period under review is 39,287 in January 2012.

 

[Em0866]

Thank you Local. This makes very interesting reading. The August figures should be out very soon so we'll see how this year's figures fare by previous years. Here's hoping for an increase on August 2014.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Here's hoping for an increase on August 2014.

I have no doubt that will happen, and significantly.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

CAA Stats August 2015

149,086 passengers handled in the month, an increase of 9.7% on August 2014. Atms were down 7.7%. Rolling 12-month total was 1,036,107, down 2.1% on a year ago.

An extremely promising month again which has been the pattern since Flybe commenced its base at CWL earlier this summer. September will be even better with the second based Flybe E 195 commencing operations as well as the huge boost from the rugby union World Cup.

All the Flybe load factors for August seem very healthy indeed.

I also note this evening that on another forum rumours of Ryanair expansion have surfaced again. We should see if it has legs this time.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Rugby World Cup Bonus

September CAA stats should be out this week or early next. CWL has been extremely fortunate in that both Ireland and France have played/will play so many games at the Millennium as they are the only two countries that would bring a large number of spectators to the match through CWL (Scotland would also have brought a significant number but not as many as France and Ireland).

19 September saw Ireland play Canada and a rough calculation suggests that around an additional 4,000 seats were made available through additional flights - that's taking into account both inbound and outbound. As the majority were chartered it can be assumed that most, probably all, the seats were taken. 4,000 would increase September 2014's 123,000 passenger total by over 3%. With the additional Flybe scheduled services kicking in for September the overall percentage increase for the month should be considerable.

Today (11 October) Ireland played France with over 60 additional rotations during the weekend. I estimate that this brought over 16,000 seats (inbound and outbound in total).

Next Saturday (17th) sees France playing New Zealand and the following day Ireland plays Argentina. If this weekend is a guide we can expect another 16,000-plus figure.

October 2014 saw 92,323 passengers during the month so the rugby traffic alone should boost October 2015's figure by at least 35%. Add in the additional Flybe services and we are looking at an increase for the month in excess of 50%.

So taken as a whole the rugby world cup will generate somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 extra passengers. This alone would increase 2014's annual total of 1,019,000 by well over 3%.

 

[Em0866]

Good evening Local.

I am looking forward to see the figures for September and October confirmed by CAA. Looking at the boards I do not remember when I saw them so full as the large amounts of flights there have been this weekend. Of course it's not over yet what with the final 2 matches as the Millennium Stadium next weekend.

Although the boards were showing the various charters, they did not show the private jets and aircraft that also flew in too. I would imagine these would be counted into the mix too. It has been an excellent weekend for CWL and I hope that the transportation problems they had before were all ironed out for this weekend.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Hello again E m.

There is no doubt that the second half of 2015 will make good reading for CWL aficionados with the rugby world cup adding some considerable icing onto what would already be very good numbers.

I'm not sure whether the CAA includes bizjet, air taxi etc passengers.

Bristol Airport publishes its own monthly stats (which are usually 2-4,000 lower than the CAA figures each month because, inter alia, BRS does not include under 2s but the CAA does).

What BRS does do though with its own monthly passengers figures is break them down into charter, scheduled international, scheduled domestic and other. I've never been too sure what the 'other' refers to. It may well be bizjets, air taxis etc although in the first eight months of this year BRS's 4.6 million passengers have only included 2,745 'other' passengers.

 

[Em0866]

Well if they do or not it will still be an impressive couple of months for CWL on top of the extra BE aircraft at the airport.

Odd you should say that BRS publish their own stats. Take a look at this article I stumbled across on my Google alerts, typical of this Tory AM who is never satisfied. It just shows how impatient and how little some politicians know of the aviation industry.
http://www.williamgrahamam.com/news/que ... er-figures

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Many thanks for that E m.

Politicians - don't you love them? Not if you're like me.

They always have an angle and invariably present only those parts of a debate that suit their interests.

The airport has only been 'nationalised' for just over two years which is the period for measurement if this politician wants to make some sort of capital. That would show that initially the airport took a step forward in terms of passenger numbers/routes but dropped back last year only to be showing obvious signs now of gaining substantial momentum.

He further clouds the issue by quoting terminal and transit passengers. At most regional airports transit passengers only usually come about when airlines 'double drop' often because a point to point service would be uneconomic, as was the case at PLH and NQY when Air Southwest used to route most of its flights through both airports. PLH supporters often quote a figure of over 150,000 passengers once using the airport annually but 40,000 of those were en route to or from NQY from/to another destination and merely sat on the aircraft at PLH without getting on or off. CAA 'league table figures' are based on terminal passengers and in fact few airports have many transit passengers anyway.

Back to CWL, 150,477 passengers for September is an excellent total. September 2014 saw 122,927 terminal passengers so the increase is actually 22.4%. Even taking out 4,000 rugby-related travellers the increase would still be over 19%.

Incidentally, on 1 September I made this forecast for September. I was a bit optimistic as it seems to have transpired but not greatly so.

70% of 220,000 equates to 154,000. September 2014 saw 123,000 so that would mean an increase of 31,000 passengers or, put another way, an increase of 25% on September 2014.

In seems to me that the airport owners are now doing exactly what this politician is demanding - generating a significant increase in passenger numbers and routes.

Ideally, the airport will be returned to the private sector in the future but it needs to fully restore its health before that step can be realistically taken.