Right …..
As far as European city routes are concerned these are already served from/to CWL by KLM and as for this Helvetic ZRH route, I recently ran a CWL/ZRH/CWL price comparison on an online travel agent site, on dates that had the cheaper Helvetic fares, and it was still £100 cheaper to fly CWL/ZRH/CWL with KLM than with Helvetic!
It’ll be hard to find a popular European city that is not served by KLM, or indeed Air France as one can route via CDG also, and KLM currently offer 240 seats in each direction daily from/to CWL to/from Europe and indeed the world.
All this talk that BRS are doing so much better than CWL, that it seems the sun shines out of BRS’s backside or similar, well for European and Worldwide city destinations, in addition to KLM, BRS also have Air France and whatever Sabena are calling themselves this week however the mighty Lufthansa launched services to link BRS with Lufthansa’s worldwide network, a very modestly sized ‘pocket rocket’ operation, well Lufthansa cancelled the service, I think, after only one season due to a lack of interest which goes to prove the point that the ‘city’ passenger numbers in south west (ish) UK just aren’t there.
And as for worldwide destinations I personally booked and travelled, last summer, CWL to Singapore with Air France, I could have booked with KLM but it was some £200 cheaper to book with AF via CDG, and I returned from that trip Manila to Cardiff with KLM thus KLM, Air France, indeed Alitalia can be booked from/to CWL and the world and if travelling CWL to/from N. America one can also book with Delta.
So … if the mighty Lufthansa can’t make a European city destination, with through fares to the world, work out of BRS then what chance has a start-up operator got of making a European city destination, WITHOUT through fares to the world, work out of CWL?
Once KLM’s overall load factors may reach 80% or above, and before KLM may get around to operating larger aircraft on the route, that’ll be the time to encourage a competitor airline in but until such load factors may be achieved … well forget it.
Routes here, there and everywhere are nothing more than the whims of an aircraft enthusiast, a ‘spotter’, and as for surveys …. Well one could ask the public if they would like a by-pass built around their town and if they’d like Tesco’s to reduce the price of baked beans by 1p, the majority would probably answer “Yes” but don’t think for one minute that they’re all about to jump in their cars to drive around the new by-pass to Tesco’s to stock-up with baked beans.