Originally Posted by
marko1
Maybe the problem is that Wizz does not offer holiday packages but so does Ryanair ? Maybe the success of Bristol with its multiple frequencies to the various sun destinations ( I’m guessing Bristol may even have more than Birmingham on a daily basis ?) makes competing even harder. If Ryanair could have I’m pretty sure that they would have based ages ago at Cardiff . Here is my suggestion. Stop obsessing what other airports are getting , stop thinking about based aircraft and encourage existing and loyal airlines such as Tui and Vueling to grow again on what Cardiff does best - Spain and encourage Ryanair to gradually grow its presence by flying ‘w’ patterns from other bases as they already do so maybe encourage adding Palma , Alicante , Tenerife and Lanzarote and who knows like Bristol it may in the future grow into a base. all airports suffer setbacks - Bristol with BA connect and Bhx with Monarch but they got back up. Cardiff can too by working with what’s already there. There’s a market just have to grow it
Cardiff will always struggle since Easyjet grew so big at Bristol. There's is undoubtedly a decent proportion of BRS millions of passengers that come from Wales. People from Wales often count BRS as their primary airport, for some BRS is probably closer and easier to reach than CWL.BRS was always in a much better position to deal with things like the pandemic as they already had volume on their side. CWL has the potential to reach say 2m passengers.Whats needed is an Airline that has the low fares and pulling power to win people back to choosing CWL over BRS on routes that are operated at both. It was hoped Wizz would do that but they didn't get it right.Ryanair is probably the only feasible option left, and totally agree it should be done on non based aircraft to test what viable. If that happens then hopefully in the near future it could warrant a base.
with DUB daily, AGP and FAO both twice weekly and potential for increased frequencies to both with Wizz gone and Vueling reducing, it might not take much to at least warrant a 1 ac base.
There will come a point, if it didn't arrive yesterday, where serious questions need to be asked, especially with the black cloud of government ownership hanging over, about the viability of CWL. But then there are other regional airports in similar situation that continue without issue.
The reaction of Vueling and Ryanair to yesterday's news will speak volumes.