CAA Provisional Statistics Update

[mathers_wales_uk]

2017

Bloody hell time flies

 

[Jerry]

Bloody hell time flies

Yep it does!

 

[Jarvo]

Cardiff Airport - Complaints Policy & Procedure – CWL

The official Cardiff Airport website for live flight information, news, airport parking, offers, booking flights & holidays.

www.cardiff-airport.com

The CAA stats for this summer are going to be very interesting it seems

 

[Jerry]

Belfast City for May 2019 was 5624 -10% on 2018 which does make it the 10th busiest route with Qatar dropping to 11th.

 

[Aviador]

Cardiff Airport - Complaints Policy & Procedure – CWL

The official Cardiff Airport website for live flight information, news, airport parking, offers, booking flights & holidays.

www.cardiff-airport.com

The CAA stats for this summer are going to be very interesting it seems

Lets hope it stays that way.

 

[Jerry]

From the article linked above.
The top ten most popular routes this summer are:

Palma de Mallorca with Vueling, TUI and Thomas Cook
Malaga with Vueling, Ryanair and TUI
Amsterdam with KLM
Doha with Qatar Airways
Edinburgh with Flybe
Alicante with TUI and Vueling
Dublin with Flybe
Dalaman with Thomas Cook and TUI
Tenerife with Thomas Cook, TUI and Ryanair
Paris with Flybe

Hopefully that means Doha is around the 9000 to 10000 mark for June

 

[Jarvo]

I know it doesn't say in the article, but do you think that list Jerry posted is ranked or just any order? Doha being above Alicante and Dublin would be very interesting!
With the summer pick up, there could be a possibility that if Qatar look to drop the CWL route, they'd retain it as a seasonal? Serious winter drop off in pax from CWL just seems to be the norm every year

 

[Pontyboy]

It does seem to be in ranked order. Palma is always the busiest route in the summer. Hopefully it’s correct and I assume Alicante and Edinburgh would carry 10,000 pax. I’m confident Doha will remain a year round route increasing its pax figures into the autumn and winter.

 

[Jerry]

I think I misinterpreted the article.
That must be the top 10 for the next 6 week's as the kids are off not June.
@Jarvo CWL is a very seasonal airport but I do think Qatar will keep Doha all year round but remain at 5 weekly during winter.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

If it's based broadly on last summer's peak period (July and August) there are a few changes in the order this year, but unless all seats at CWL for the next six weeks are already sold out no-one can be certain of the exact number who will travel on any route.

Looking at July and August last year, this is the order that occurred then.

Palma 40,820 (19,512 July/21,308 August)
Amsterdam 25,911 (13,060/12,851)
Doha 21,728 (10,160 /11,568)
Alicante 21,016 (10,603/10,413)
Malaga 20,905 (10,389/10,516)
Dublin 20,199 (9,659/10,540)
Edinburgh 19,448 (9,475/9,973)
Paris CDG 16,521 (8,131/8,390)
Dalaman 15,388 (7,414/7,974)
Tenerife 15,221 (7,269/7,952)

 

[Jerry]

It'll be interesting to see how much Malaga has grown by with the extra seats from Ryanair as they added an extra 6993 seats over July and August. Of course the big fear is that by launching that route Vueling will cut and run and CWL will lose out.
Edinburgh had extra seats so hopefully they've been filled up. Dalaman to has had some extra flights from both TUI and TCX so that should see a boost. Doha i hope might see a little bit of growth but i don't expect it too be much.
Hopefully the rolling year for August will be more towards the 1.7 million mark.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

View attachment 13901

I've done some route analysis of the peak years for both CWL and BRS. I won't go too in depth as it's all there to see and make your own conclusions.
Some interesting points though;
- Even though 2007 was the busiest year for terminal passengers, 2006 was actually busier for PMI, ALC, DUB and TFS.
- AMS is consistently the most popular route with the exception of 2009, which i'm guessing was something to do with Bmibaby, although they closed the base in 2011.
- Although not shown on here, there is a marked difference in the number of charter vs scheduled passengers carried from CWL-PMI vs BRS-PMI. CWL-PMI is very popular as package holidays so i'm surprised VY haven't performed better on the scheduled side of things.
- The above routes generate over half of CWL's total terminal passengers.
- Comparing CWL & BRS routes in 2006 or 2007 shows CWL was carrying well over 50% of what BRS were carrying. in 2018 it's probably between 25-35% on most of those routes.

It shows that the potential is there. Wales population has grown from 2.99m in 2006 to 3.19m in 2018. People are clearly travelling more as between CWL & BRS in 2007 8.04m people travelled through both Airports and in 2018 that has risen 10.28m. In 2006 CWL accounted for approx. 26% of those, in 2018 CWL accounted for 15% of the regions travellers.
I have a feeling that most of these routes will remain fairly consistent for 2019, with increases in total terminal passengers coming from new routes. With flybes seat reductions I wouldn't be surprised to see drops in DUB, EDI and CDG.

 

[Jerry]

Summer 2020 will be interesting! Especially to see if CWL can keep the growth going despite the Flybe setback.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

View attachment 13901

I've done some route analysis of the peak years for both CWL and BRS. I won't go too in depth as it's all there to see and make your own conclusions.
Some interesting points though;
- Even though 2007 was the busiest year for terminal passengers, 2006 was actually busier for PMI, ALC, DUB and TFS.
- AMS is consistently the most popular route with the exception of 2009, which i'm guessing was something to do with Bmibaby, although they closed the base in 2011.
- Although not shown on here, there is a marked difference in the number of charter vs scheduled passengers carried from CWL-PMI vs BRS-PMI. CWL-PMI is very popular as package holidays so i'm surprised VY haven't performed better on the scheduled side of things.
- The above routes generate over half of CWL's total terminal passengers.
- Comparing CWL & BRS routes in 2006 or 2007 shows CWL was carrying well over 50% of what BRS were carrying. in 2018 it's probably between 25-35% on most of those routes.

It shows that the potential is there. Wales population has grown from 2.99m in 2006 to 3.19m in 2018. People are clearly travelling more as between CWL & BRS in 2007 8.04m people travelled through both Airports and in 2018 that has risen 10.28m. In 2006 CWL accounted for approx. 26% of those, in 2018 CWL accounted for 15% of the regions travellers.
I have a feeling that most of these routes will remain fairly consistent for 2019, with increases in total terminal passengers coming from new routes. With flybes seat reductions I wouldn't be surprised to see drops in DUB, EDI and CDG.

Many thanks for that detailed digest, Foxlimayankee. As you point out, history shows that there is further scope to expand many of these routes, and others.

Despite the assertion in the Northpoint report that the two airports have distinct catchments when it comes to short-haul and which are said in the report to be 'clearly discernible', reality shows that the market isn't so sure that is completely the case. South Wales does lose a lot of passengers to BRS and the reasons (many and varied probably) have been debated endlessly on local aviation forums.

I was particularly struck by your comparison of CWL's share of the Severnside market in 2007 and 2018. I have a list that shows the annual share going back to 1986 which was the last year that CWL handled more passengers than BRS. I append the list below. There are slight variations in my figures and yours as I only include terminal passengers which is the normal comparison the CAA uses in its 'league tables', albeit it does also show transit passengers at every airport each month in its table 09. Most of the time they are insignificant in number.

It will be seen that each year from 2014 onwards CWL has increased its percentage share of the Severnside market by a tiny amount (13.9% in 2014 to 15.4% in 2018). Percentages can sometimes be misleading because in the same period the gap in actual passenger numbers has increased from 5.313 million in 2014 to 7.118 million in 2018. The overall market has grown substantially in the past five years and it can be argued that CWL ought to be grabbing a bigger slice.

Below is CWL's percentage share of the Severnside market each year from 1986. The other figure shown is 'the market', ie the combined total of annual passenger numbers at CWL and BRS. It can be seen that CWL's percentage share really began to slip to a third from the early 'noughties' which corresponds with the arrival at BRS of Go, later absorbed into easyJet. 2003 saw a slight improvement with bmi baby's first full year but thereafter things continued downhill with even 2007 (CWL's best year to date for annual passenger figures) only seeing just over a quarter share of the overall market. The five years of falling annual passenger numbers at CWL after 2007 saw the share drop to the low/mid teens percentage-wise and, although the there has been a tiny claw-back in recent years in percentage share, the gap in actual annual passenger numbers between the two airports continues to widen markedly.

1986 0.956 50.9%
1987 1.277 49.5%
1988 1.324 46.8%
1989 1.534 45.4%
1990 1.367 43.4%
1991 1.296 39.6%
1992 1.679 38.9%
1993 1.876 40.7%
1994 2.266 43.7%
1995 2.455 41.8%
1996 2.395 41.8%
1997 2.710 41.5%
1998 3.044 40.4%
1999 3.269 39.6%
2000 3.624 41.4%
2001 4.197 36.3%
2002 4.831 29.3%
2003 5.787 32.8%
2004 6.476 28.9%
2005 6.964 25.3%
2006 7.703 25.9%
2007 7.978 26.2%
2008 8.208 24.1%
2009 7.240 22.4%
2010 7.121 19.6%
2011 6.976 17.3%
2012 6.929 14.6%
2013 7.182 14.7%
2014 7.353 13.9%
2015 7.939 14.6%
2016 8.948 15.0%
2017 9.698 15.1%
2018 10.276 15.4%

 

[Jerry]

The overall market has grown substantially in the past five years and it can be argued that CWL ought to be grabbing a bigger slice.

I think though that yes the overall market has grown but maybe one of CWL's problems is that the market has grown to destinations it can't sustain rather than just the traditional sun routes which it's always been quite strong on. If you look at what routes Easyjet have added over the last couple of years at BRS, practically all of them would be completely unsustainable at CWL even a popular country like Italy is proving to be hard to sustain and of course it's not just for many about the destinations but the airlines and not having Easyjet will always be CWLs achilles heel in many people's minds, thought they have attracted Ryanair so hopefully they can grow the routes and frequencies and increase the passenger numbers over the next few years with them though i wouldn't be surprised if there were a few bumps along the way!

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Thanks TLY. Yes, I did take the total number of passengers including transit passengers. The market share percentages are also an interesting read. Despite CWL clawing back some of it's market share, as you say, it may not be a true reflection of what is going on. We all recognise that BRS is growing faster than CWL in terms of actual passenger numbers, so as you say, percentages don't necessarily paint a true picture. If CWL was at 1.6m and grew by a healthy 15%, it would have gained 240,000 passengers. If BRS was at 8.7m and grew by 15% it would've grown by 1.3m passengers. A huge difference.
Now i'm purely plucking figures out of the sky for comparison purposes, but based solely on these most popular routes;

If 1 WEEKLY year round flight was added to the sun destination PMI, AGP, ALC, DLM & TFS on 180 seat aircraft that would bring 18,720 seats per destination, a total of 93,600 seats.
If 1 DAILY year round flight was added by Flybe (ambitious I know) to AMS, DUB, EDI and CDG, that would bring 56,940 per destination, a total of 227,760 seats.
A total of 321,360.
Those figures by destination in reality wouldn't make a massive dent in the figures BRS is supplying to those destinations, and without taking into account current Airlines own situations, isn't an unrealistic expectation. It would also put CWL at a 20% growth rate. Not taking into account any other routes that could be increased or new routes.
The above is only a scenario based on the popular routes we're currently discussing. In realistic terms we could see FR increase TFS, FAO, MLA and BCN by 1 weekly flight if they have proved successful and stretch them over the winter season. That's 4 of the 5 routes covered
Within the region travel to AMS has increased to over 100k, with roughly 50/50 split in 2007 to a 25/75 split in 2018. The same with DUB and EDI, although CDG hasn't really seen much increase in travel over the past 12 years.

And so back to reality. It's been common for us to think "this is the changing year" at CWL for a number of years, and things in this industry change very fast. With FR's foot in the door, if these routes prove a success it would be nice to think a small increase would be given in 2020, which would be a huge factor in CWL's turnaround.
Not forgetting the largely unmentioned DOH in this topic, is now in the route proving phase, being over a year old.
If Flybe got their act together, the opportunities are there. Although I do think CWL will be very much down the pecking order given the changes that will be soon happening with them. Flybe have been a double edged sword. The are the perfect sized airline for CWL's shorter routes, but has severely damaged their reputation around the country over recent years.
If CWL has solid, strong, well branded and reliable Airlines, i'm sure it would be in a much stronger position than it currently is. EZY and FR offer that, Flybe tried but has failed to deliver.
CWL has hit another brick wall by losing the longer routes Flybe were providing and my opinion is that it should now concentrate on the routes it currently has and grow the frequencies on them routes in order to win back the leakage from other Airports.

 

[Jerry]

It is interesting as the other day someone was saying that CWLs market share was a lot more than it is now and should be bigger and the same person was saying that CWL was massively under performing and blamed the CWL management for that.
I do personally think that it should be busier but i do feel that it is a struggle for them to get the airlines interested. There is so much competition out there I do feel that with airlines CWLs voice may get lost in the crowd quite a lot even with airlines already operating from there Vueling is an example of that I feel so they turn to Ryanair and risk pushing Vueling away.

 

[Jarvo]

In regard to Vueling and Ryanair, the vital piece of information that'll help us understand the nature of the airport/Vueling/Ryanair situation, is the order in which the switch over for the BCN flights came in. Vueling dropping the route and FR picking it up straight away would definitely be a lot better than if FR had started in competition and Vueling backed out immediately in response. Does anyone have any information on that?
The situation with AGP will definitely be interesting in S2020, especially if FR look at starting Alicante, which is another well performing sun route from CWL.

 

[Jerry]

With BCN I believe it was a case of Ryanair to the rescue after Vueling dropped it. I personally doubt Ryanair would've launched BCN if Vueling were operating it.
Malaga will be interesting to see as no doubt the airport wants Ryanair to add extra frequencies to build up the core routes but doesn't want Vueling to leave. I would be surprised if Ryanair doesn't launch Alicante eventually but with Malaga and Mallorca not onsale by Vueling yet could that be an indication of the extra frequencies Ryanair might add on a route and the next route they'll add?
I would like to think as well that CWL could grow routes like Gran canaria and Lanzarote as well even just an extra weekly flight on each would be a good boost especially if they were all year round.

 

[Pontyboy]

Vueling have had an almost unchallenged reign on ALC, AGP and PMI over the last 6 or so years. They've grown, but not as quickly as we would like and has underestimated the potential for passengers. With out a doubt Vueling has hampered what i would call natural growth, stats above will show that the airport has lost substantial market share. Which leads me on to my next point, Does CWL have a management team that is happy enough to deliver only mediocre results in terms of additional passengers (not % increase) and not upset current airlines in the pursuit for greater passengers numbers. We had a few years ago Ryanair flights in the system for them only to be removed - what was that about? Where is the ambition to have both Ryanair and Vueling on the same routes just like Bristol has 2 major low cost carriers on theirs. Also, the amount of people flying from the regions airports has grown significantly since any economic downturn. The airport is underachieving. Sad but true.