Originally Posted by
caaardiff
My thoughts exactly. That's city to city too. Is there really enough business/leisure traffic to support 2 return flights per day?
Connectivity wise, what could MAN offer CWL?
There is of course Atlantic connections, but not sure MAN is a big enough HUB.
We have QR to the east so why dilute that?
Flybe use CWL as a mini hub for some connections, so why take that away from CWL. Other connections using BE via MAN seem pointless given that it's in the wrong direction to connect to where anyone would want to go.
If this was a standalone route then crack on and good luck. But no way should this be funded. If any money was going to go into connecting MAN it should go on improving train capacity as this can be a busy route.
When the proposals were first unveiled in May the Welsh Government's Transport Secretary made this statement in the Senedd.
https://gov.wales/about/cabinet/cabi...nsPSO/?lang=en
As regards funding of the routes, he said, "Other than some modest marketing budget, I do not intend to provide any further subsidy for these new routes. Early market indication is the proposed incentives may be sufficient for many, if not all, of these routes to operate in this way – but only a formal tender process will flush that out. If the market does not think these incentives are sufficient for a particular route, then no contract will be awarded for that route."
The incentives mentioned are a four-year period of exclusivity on each of the routes and an absence of air passenger duty.