Originally Posted by
OC37
Perhaps what may be the answer is a new Wales based tour operator, there was Red Dragon Travel with Airways International Cymru, Aspro Holidays with Inter European Airways, with all these WG incentives for businesses can't they find a new tour operator with an in house or contracted airline focused on primarily serving Wales and without charging a supplement to do so?
The WG shouldn't be funding Tour Operators as it does nothing for the Welsh economy. However the suggestion of independent tour operators utilising a carrier should work. I posted an example of this elsewhere where if say Wizz were to base, the likes of Travel House & Hays could use them. Its viability would be better as the flights would be supported by holiday makers as well as Wizz flight only bookings. Im not sure if Tour Operators use the Ryanair flights to transport their customers but I know Vueling get used often.
If routes from CWL can't be run viably then the question needs to be asked as to why the routes are running in the first place? I'm sure we'd all love to see Air Wales reborn serving the domestic routes, with the right cost base, timings and aircraft it could work, but then it would remain a small specialist carrier with limited route options. Personally i feel the Flybe deal was all wrong. Another WG todger swinging vanity project to say 'look at the routes we have' that eventually the realisation become clear that some of the routes weren't sustainable. There could be many reasons as to why, but for now its back to square one in hope that we see a return to the routes that were viable.
Everyone needs to realise that the reset button has been hit again, just like it was in the early 2010s, and it will take several years for CWL to build back up. Consolidate and concentrate on what works, rebuild passenger confidence in looking at CWL and using it and making routes profitable for Airlines.