I'd like to publicly thank Flower for her comments. She is right, her and I have had a few personal differences of opinion, but her views on the airport are, typically for her, spot on. She, like me, comes at this with years of experience of the industry, her in a technical professional role, me in a managerial role, and spookily enough, we tend to reach the same conclusions. If I come across as arrogant, well I am sorry, but it does become very wearing on here reading all the spotter's wishlists for the airport, alongside the misinformed comments of those who think they could run the airport/its airlines/its ATC unit better than those who do. Those of us in the industry - and who are close to the industry in Cardiff in particular - know the players involved, and yes, I have questioned some of their decisions in the past. So has Flower - but in both our cases and others I am sure it is a case of frustration, optimism and to counteract the "Cardiff is a Dump" claims of too many on here. Could I do JH's job better than him? No, absolutely not, and I wouldn't even want the stress of trying.
Cardiff is indeed not as good an airport as many - I'm thinking Dubai, Singapore etc. But it is a DAMN sight better than many airports of its size. I won't name and shame the dozens of regional airports I can think of that come well below CWL in terms of investment, potential, and ease of use.
I am sure if JH and his team had a magic wand, or a shed full of tenners, they would probably start again and build 21st Century airport, probably not at Rhoose, with a mainline station on site, four runways, one amazing terminal and dozens of jetway-equipped stands. They would install chaises longues for all the passengers to wait on, and fountains full of asses' milk for the ATCOs to bathe in, and a free bar and gym on site for all the ground handlers.
But in the absence of a magic wand or shedloads of tenners, they, like all businesses, must do what they can with what they have.
Cardiff is visibly better than it was even two years ago, let alone the seven years that Flower referred to. It is building traffic, and building revenue - perhaps not as fast as many on here would like (myself and Flower may well be in that band!) but what can really be done about it that isn't being done already? Do you think, say, BA would still be there, or Emirates would be there, if the airport gave them zero costs? I don't.
What Cardiff needs is a new, based operator committed to the area. It needs someone to give it a major boost in traffic and pax numbers, to get it through the 2.5-3m mark, and give it serious critical mass. This would then give the team at the airport more clout, more money and more ability to get the better shops, better restaurants, better bars etc that the airport would surely benefit from - but who are not going to give the place a second glance with low footfall numbers.
Perhaps the airport has someone in mind for this. Perhaps they will have to pick up whatever routes they can and build critical mass slowly. Whatever, some of us will carry on banging the drum for the old place!
TA