Lee@LPL
Just to put a bit of meat on flower’s remarks, in 1996 BRS had just under 1.4 million annual pax whilst CWL carried just under 1.1 million.
In 2005 BRS had 5.2 million whilst CWL had 1.8 million. In fact, CWL is one of the few significant regional airports to have actually gone backwards in recent years in terms of annual pax numbers, because in 2003 the airport had 1.9 million pax. (all figures from CAA stats).
However, as flower correctly says, things are now looking much brighter for CWL. The past few months have seen welcome percentage monthly increases in pax numbers, modest at present, but with the additional services planned for this year pax numbers should continue to grow but far more substantially.
To answer your specific question, CWL does have a weekly Zoom flight to Toronto for most of the year with a weekly Vancouver to be added this year. The airport also operates summer charters to Florida and these are being augmented this summer, as well as the arrival of weekly charter flights to Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
Where CWL has undoubtedly missed out is in the low-cost boom, at least relatively so. The airport’s main ‘no frills’ operator, bmibaby, for whatever reason, has never given the impression that it is so committed to CWL as, for example, easyJet is to BRS. It certainly hasn’t pressed on with expansion in the same way, although the airline may say it can only do what is economically viable.
As we are talking about runways, CWL’s is 340-odd metres longer than BRS’s 2011-metre runway, and at a lower level. Taken with a larger physical ability to accommodate up to B 747-size aircraft, it can be seen why CWL is used more by operators for long haul charters than its neighbour across the Severn.
As WATABENCH suggests, it is really up to an airport to play to its strengths and minimise its weaknesses. BRS has a larger catchment and is situated in a wealthy part of the country in a very economically-prosperous sub-region, whilst CWL has improving land communications with a larger airport infrastructure, and certainly better weather (as I am sure flower will confirm in her professional capacity).
It will probably always be that BRS has a larger critical mass, and therefore more flights and pax (unless it runs out of space), but CWL will have the ability to continue to grow without too much concern about where it will put everyone.
Of course all this is dependent on airport owners having the will (and means) to plough in the required cash and airport managements having the ability to develop their airports further, and in that sense runway lengths are only a part of the equation.