Holiday flights flourish but none fly to business hotspot
Mar 4 2008 by Rhodri Clark, Western Mail
THE number of people flying from South Wales to France fell by two thirds in two years, according to official statistics.
That knocked France out of the top 10 international destinations from Cardiff airport – and below Portugal, Turkey, Cyprus, the Czech Republic and the US.
Spain continued to dominate the airport’s international business, the Welsh Assembly Government’s 2007 digest of air transport statistics has revealed.
But the figures yesterday led to warnings that a lack of routes between Wales and Germany is hampering business links. Nobody travelled between Cardiff airport and Germany in 2006, the latest year in the figures.
In 2006, Cardiff airport handled 1.6 million international passengers. Half travelled to or from Spain and the Canary Islands.
Charter flights to Spain declined but were replaced by scheduled flights – reflecting the popularity of booking flights and accommodation over the internet.
Peter Phillips, Cardiff airport’s head of marketing, said Spain dominated other UK airports.
“Low-cost airlines are going further now. When they started off, they were only going to Paris and Amsterdam.”
The Assembly Government’s figures show that from 2004 to 2006, passengers on scheduled flights between Cardiff and France dropped from 80,224 to 13,287. Charter flights grew strongly in response, but combined figures for charter and scheduled flights to France show a decline from 82,074 to 26,015 passengers.
Mr Phillips said the figures reflected changes to services rather than the Welsh public’s appetite for visiting France. Low-cost operator BMIbaby had handed the Paris route to Air Wales, which stopped operating it in 2006.
Travel to and from Ireland – down 20% in 2006 from 2005 – was affected by similar changes, after Ryanair withdrew.
“Now we’re seeing that France is booming,” said Mr Phillips.
“Flybe fly twice a day to Paris. Aer Arann fly to Nantes in the summer, serving the holiday-home market.”
Martin Evans, external research fellow at the Wales Transport Research Centre, said BMIbaby had decided the aircraft on its Cardiff-Paris route would make more money elsewhere, and Air Wales had used a smaller plane.
“I’m told that Flybe are happy with the numbers using the service now,” said Mr Evans. “We will have some stability on the route and it will grow from here.”
Stacey Hartery, of South Wales travel agency Travel House, said people in the region rarely wanted flights to France for their main holiday.
“We do a lot of Disneyland breaks. We haven’t done so many city breaks in Paris,” said Miss Hartery, manager of the company’s branch in Clydach, Swansea. “A few might want a chalet for a ski holiday in France, but it’s very few.”
The trade was dominated by traditional Spanish favourites including the Balearic Islands, Costa del Sol and Benidorm.
The Assembly Government statistics show a correlation between international flights from Cardiff and areas popular for holidays or second homes, with Bulgaria going from zero passengers in 2000 to 24,731 in 2006.
The main exception is the Netherlands, which has seen continuous growth because of the 400 destinations accessible via connecting flights from Schiphol, near Amsterdam. Mr Evans said, “Whereas we’re quite happy to travel two or three hours to access an airport, we like the destination airport to be as near to our final destination as possible. Therefore, if you have to arrive from Germany at an airport in England, it makes Wales seem very remote.”
I dont really know what to think of this i mean its good that holiday flights are doing well, but its very depressing the amount of buisness flights we have.
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Users on this forum have been going on about this for a while and only now the airport is really looking into it.
Question that need to be asked is how the airport is going to resolve this problem.
However i disagree with the title as it states none fly to bsuiness hotspots. We have GLA, CDG, EDI, NCL, BFS, BHD. We obviously do need and increased business route network and hope that this can be resolved for 2009.
I have been looking at the figures on youwouldifyoucould. It is very difficult to calculate the amount of people that have completed (as it doesn't state any figures on the graphs).
Top 10 destinations that those completed the Questionaire (only two are served from CWL).
Top 10 Airlines that those completed the Questionaire (only 3 are operating from CWL).
We really do need to resolve this issue sooner rather than later. Increased transport links will have to be provided also to help achieve this.