Originally Posted by
runway30
I wish he had done his homework before opening his mouth. The market at Cardiff will sustain a low cost airline in the Summer, it will not sustain it during the Winter. You might say that this describes the whole of the low cost market but at Cardiff it is more pronounced because whilst some of the catchment is wealthy enough to to take multiple flights a year, a large part of the catchment historically only went on holiday once a year and now can only afford to go on holiday once a year if at all.
You cannot take back passengers from Bristol by, let us say, using support from the Welsh Government because that would be illegal state aid. After December 31st, we don’t know what the competition policy will be of the UK Governemnt but we already know that they won’t allow APD to be devolved and therefore don’t support the Welsh Government taking passengers back from Bristol.
Ther is a risk in having a dominant low cost based airline at an airport the size of Cardiff. They would demand and get lower aeronautical charges, other remaining airlines (such as they are) would demand the same to enable them to compete with the low cost carrier. The low cost carrier could then use commercial power to keep those charges low, taking away aeronautical income that would deny funds for further development of the airport.
Up until coronavirus, the policy of attracting low cost airlines to fly from their foreign bases seems very sensible until Cardiff could achieve a large enough density of passengers to allow multiple airlines to compete. The problem at Cardiff was the deal with Flybe which didn’t give the passenger numbers and growth that would have been provided by a low cost airline but dominated the airport and therefore discouraged competition.
I was never encouraged that the airport would get through the loss making part of the deal into the nirvana of the profitable end of the deal because nobody could tell me what the Flybe strategy would be in 3 years never mind ten years.
That statement came from the chairman of two budget airlines who clearly has his head up his backside if he believes that EZY are a, quote, "true low cost airline" and if he thinks, quote, "people simply keep driving along the M4… and get to Bristol", that BRS is anywhere near to the M4 whilst he serves to reignite the CWL vs BRS animosity, that's truly mature of him!
Quoting this poster that CWL can sustain a loco during the summer, yes but what routes would they serve beside the same old 'bucket and spade' summer holiday destinations that have been successfully served from CWL since the launch of IT holidays and long before loco's became a more recent fad.
Are Vueling not a loco, have Vueling not been serving some of these bucket and spade routes successfully for a number of years now, have the likes of Thomas Cook (RIP) and TUI, to name but two, not been serving these bucket and spade routes also, CWL can successfully operate UK domestic routes with modestly sized aircraft, if BRS can do it with medium jet operators who have squeezed the airport for the lowest fees whilst transporting budget travellers many of whom shall keep their money in their pockets when transitting the airport then let them do so, if CWL were to even think about taking on BRS head-to-head in a price war then whilst the travelling public may benefit, BRS would ultimately win due to it's geographic location whilst both airports and airlines would suffer along with the Welsh taxpayers who subsidise CWL!
What springs to mind is a discussion I once had with a former colleague regarding tour operators, he was ex Britannia, Thomson were the No.1 UK tour operator, both on quality and quantity, Airtours came along and overtook them on numbers, on holidays sold and passengers transported but to do so they simply couldn't offer the quality that Thomson offered, should CWL be focusing on quality or quantity?