A good old friend of mine ...
There has been speculation in recent months that FR are interested in an increased presence at CWL, forming part of their marketing video for 2016, all of which were pretty much bases or more highly served destinations within the FR network. A poster also with good knowledge of the workings of FR has recently stated that he believes that there are at least a few CWL sympathisers within the FR ranks, and plans are afoot for something, with no timescale given. Cardiff is the fastest growing city in the UK, so i'm sure airlines would be looking at that and the recent announcements of pretty large inward investments (with the exception of the steelworks at Port Talbot) with eager anticipation that the CWL core catchment is increasing faster than ever.
On another note, recent BE loadings seem to be taking an upward trend, numerous CWL-EDI flights that I have been on have had loadings in excess of 100 passengers, and the whole network seems to be improving (some more quickly than others).
VY suffered a hefty delay of 9.5 hours on yesterdays ALC service with the incident aircraft EC-MBY being tugged to BAMC for maintenance, with a replacement being flown in from BCN at around 22:30 to cover this flight, some commitment from VY to get the flight operating, since it could have quite easily been cancelled. Although an aircraft would have had to position BCN-ALC to cover this morning's schedules anyway, good initiative shown to fly the rotation with of course the incentive of not paying cancellation compensation to the passengers.
VY are best placed to once again offer further growth from CWL next Summer, with an increased presence this Winter. Loadings have been excellent, and ALC-CWL-ALC was mooted as VY's top performing route from ALC airport last Summer courtesy of the ALC twitter feed. I think, with almost certainty, that VY will increase the BCN, ALC, PMI and AGP offerings again next year, but i wonder if they will be tempted to try out a new route or two ??