So many hopes but as ever Twin Aisle and Merchant Venturer must be regarded as the authority on this subject.
Forgive me if I state the obvious once again but it is so easy when you are close to get carried away with what we would love to see but a harsh reality exists.
No matter who flies what aircraft or if the runway has swarovski crystal landing lights EVERYTHING begins with the number of bottoms on seats you can extract from the surrounding catchment area and in the case of schedules what may come from the other direction. Will those bottoms yield enough to cover the extra operating costs and still add something to the balance sheet or is there somewhere better to do that.
Market research will only give you an educated guess at existing routes that can be developed or new ones stimulated. If we all knew when it was right or wrong wouldn't it be easy.
Until Cardiff can increase that reservoir of potential passengers there will be no major expansion, Were the economy to significantly change overnight or a million people move to Cardiff, perhaps, that though is just a pipe dream in the forseeable future.
Here is another pipe dream. how much better it would be if we could build a massive airport near the M5 with a monorail to Cardiff, Bristol and Exeter City and a station that has super fast trains to Truro, Plymouth Birmingham and all the local towns and turn the existing airports into energy farms to power the lot,
Until that day sorry Cardiff you will struggle along on what you have plus or minus the brave that will always give it a go, some routes to last some not.