Originally Posted by
Flightrider
There is something of a difference between a long term investment in capital facilities and an air service that can be withdrawn the day the money runs out! I stick by my views - clearly not popular but it is also reaching the point where everyone knows Cardiff pay airlines to fly there and no-one will develop services there now without being paid to do it. If you’re happy with that situation and think it’s sustainable then I’d support full devolution of all tax affairs to WG soonest so that none of my taxes are going forwards funding this charade!
It's fairly obvious that currently CWL is being supported by SOME Airlines that are benefiting from whatever it is is being given. Whether it be marketing help, reduced fees or some kind of subsidy. The are other Airlines at CWL that have been there some time and I doubt they are still receiving any benefits.
TUI are growing to a 3rd aircraft next summer. Although it's not much to shout about, they are still maintaining the winter long haul and cruise schedules.
Vueling are operating decent schedules and have now been around some time. It was said they previously had marketing incentives, which I doubt are still being provided.
CWL is growing after being neglected by Abertis years ago. Had the investment been provided throughout it would be interesting to see where CWL would be now. What the WG has done is provided investment that should have been done by Abertis. The issue is that it's now in the public eye and continually being scrutinised. But lets not forget that ultimately the investment in QR is an investment in the Welsh economy, not just CWL.
What no-one knows is what will happen post "incentive time" for Flybe and Qatar. Flybe are said to be happy with the CWL operation, but I would also think some of their routes aren't performing as well as they could be. As for QR, it's only a few months in. Figures are growing and becoming comparable to the likes of BHX already. It could go either way, and I believe there's valid points provided on both sides, but only time will tell. There's obviously some pessimistic views and some optimistic views, this is a rumour and open forum after all.
What is evident is whatever CWL are doing, they are doing it right. Growth is happening, but there's still a long way to go. Personally I think it's too early to write off anything that's currently happening as a long term failure.
Given that BRS has grown by over 2m passenger in the past 4/5 years and is projected to continually grow, where it's currently at 8+m per year, there's no doubt that a proportion of that is from the South Wales catchment (1m+ is a figure thrown around recently). What CWL is slowly doing is winning those passengers back. Clearly not all of those passengers are going to switch to CWL as they may to travelling to places offered from BRS but not CWL. But I do know that many people that use BRS are travelling to places offered from CWL, but either default to the likes of EZY and FR without checking CWL because of the age old perception that's it's always more expensive to fly from CWL, which I would say is not always true. CWL needs to work on trying to promote itself and change that way of thinking. Help the current routes to grow and become sustainable, and then look to the future growth of route network.