Originally Posted by
EK77WNCL
Is it really a positive for wales if it's just having money thrown at it? Taxpayer's money I assume (please correct me if I'm wrong). I can draw some significant differences between CWL-DOH and NCL-DXB. Vague similarities are that they both started with roughly 8 months of advances sales from the original press release, both started on 1st of the month and were on similarly sized, two class aircraft (788 - 254 vs A332 - 278). That's where it ends. September 2007 saw 9552 passengers fly NCL-DXB. Yes, it was daily, but CWL-DOH was originally sold as daily. 9552 passengers is a 57% load factor on the 278 seat A330. EK's fares were/are also slightly higher than QR's. Were QR not selling CWL-SYD for something crazy like £400 return a few months ago. 26% is not a sustainable load factor, not by a long shot, not even if every single seat was full fare!
I say this as if it matters to Qatar Airways, who seem to care very little for any kind of economic viability. As long as they can say they serve the most capital cities, I'll just sit back and watch them live in their own little bubble. It's a real shame though, they could genuinely have something to offer Wales and the South West if they weren't so reckless!
So a government spending money promoting Wales not just as a tourist destination but as a place for business and investment isn't a positive thing in your mind? As for load factors the route has gotten off to a slow a start yes but Cardiff is different than Newcastle and will need time to build the route up which will happen.
So serving Wales is in your eyes reckless let me guess because they should've gone to Bristol?