Southwest England to cross the bridge and back to save, perhaps, £20 per round trip ticket?

BRS to CWL is circa 75 minutes in each direction by road, 62 miles in each direction, 124 miles round trip at current costs of circa 35p per mile and then there's a further £5.70 per car to cross the bridge.

So if a car carries two persons, saving ticket costs of £40.00, it's going to cost them £49.10 to save that £40.00, they'd be out of pocket by £9.10.

Three persons in a car, an actual saving of £10.90 ... For a buggeration factor of 2.5 hours additional (car) travelling I can't see it happening.

Four persons in a car saving £30.90, for the buggeration factor I wouldn't consider it worthwhile to drive for 2.5 hours to save that amount, I'd prefer to spend the time relaxing, indeed sleeping, at home.

Amusing though, three flights a week to a destination that mainstream airports serve more times per week, perhaps daily, perhaps several times daily, and the CWL Reggie Spotters are jumping cock-a-hoop over 3 loco services a week! :)

Wonder how long they keep service going when these charges

Landing fees and charges - Cardiff Airport

start to bite.

Passenger load charge £16.50 per passenger indeed.

Sorry CWL you are caught in the 'Law of Supply and Demand'; what you should be doing is lowering charges to stimulate demand; as at the moment there is an oversupply of airport capacity; this is evidenced by all those empty stands; day after day, night after night....

Make no mistake here; no airline is going to come to 'rescue' cwl; only cwl management can do that.

ttfn

what are brs charges

see for yourself

http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/abou...July-2011.ashx

and they don't charge £200 for use of passenger bus!

I've worked at both airports; and would prefer to be back at Cwl.

ttfn

No wonder Airlines Wont Come To Cardiff When Bristol Passenger load charges are £13.90 per passenger £2.60 Cheaper Than Cardiff :ugh:


ivor toolbox
Wonder how long they keep service going when these charges

Landing fees and charges - Cardiff Airport

start to bite.

Passenger load charge £16.50 per passenger indeed.

Sorry CWL you are caught in the 'Law of Supply and Demand'; what you should be doing is lowering charges to stimulate demand; as at the moment there is an oversupply of airport capacity; this is evidenced by all those empty stands; day after day, night after night....

Make no mistake here; no airline is going to come to 'rescue' cwl; only cwl management can do that.

Are you guys honestly so naive re charges? Those are PUBLISHED charges which are the guide price for fees. If you think Vueling are going to pay them, you would be stupid to think that. This is why strong negotiation goes on and why they are defined as lo-cost carriers.

It's highly likely that Vueling is paying somewhere around 50-75% of the prices listed for fees/charges which can be changed and of course those that can't e.g. taxes will remain the same.

CWL have a history of inflexibility with charges which saw the withdrawal of Ryanair a few years back. Solid rumors had a similar situation with J2 recently. Plus, TCX and TOM have always had to charge a few quid more per pax than the same product at BRS for as long as I can remember to cover ap charges.
CWL Management negotiate, I think not.

Correct; inflexibility in charges was one of main reasons my
former employer pulled out of Cardiff too.

A 300% rise in office space rent was just one of their charges;
the whole lot made the cost per seat (ie the cost of operating out of Cardiff per year divided by number of available departure seats) un-economic, I still have the final years budget figures for the Cardiff base from that time up in my loft somewhere.

There are other un-published charges; such as the fuel throughput levy;
effectively an airport tax on each litre of fuel that comes through airport gate; this too puts price of fuel at point of delivery up compared to other airports.

Do you really not wonder why the former CEO of TBI once referred to CWL as "just a giant cash generator"

Finally; the term lo-cost carrier was coined for those airlines that advertise rock-bottom ticket prices; and sell the legal minimum at those prices too... not because they pay less costs at airports... and yes all airlines play hard-ball with their respective airports.

Sorry, rant over.

ttfn

And let it not be missed, that's if it still the same, the CWL Air BP bowser drivers are on a commission for fuel sold ... they used to hate me, as an example I'd, once weekly, tanker fuel in on a B757 ferry flight from LTN to CWL (fuel was, I recall, 18% cheaper in LTN) sufficient to operate it's next CWL/LCA sector.

With regards to the FR withdrawal, if i remember correctly the fees jumped by 300% but in all fairness to the CWL management why wpuld they continue to offer discounts to an airline who broke the contract? Again if memory serves me well FR were supposed to operate a twice daily service which they never did apart from the odd day.

I think we have got to be real that if people book the Barcelona and it is successful then more services will follow. On price people will travel particularly from the valleys this is shown by the numbers that think Cardiff is expensive and go to Bristol. They don't tot up the cost of traveling to Bristol just the initial cost of booking the flight.

I am disappointed that that the Western mail has not run any articles on the new service just a negative campaign about the airport.

Re FR we all talk about a 300% rise but a percentage means nothing unless you know what the original figures where lets say if it was a cost of £1 then a 300% rise means a cost of £4 per passenger!

So, before it even starts, how long are guessing BCN will last..?

Heading 125, this article seems pretty positive to me, I don't know how you're reading it?

Spanish airline Vueling confirms low-cost flights from Cardiff to Barcelona - Business News - Business - WalesOnline

If an airline or airport wants to advertise it's services then it is protocol that said airline and/or airport pays to advertise said services as is commonplace in the western world.

Are things done differently in Wales?

The route is great news for CWL which ever way you look at it, however a lot of emphasis is put on the fact it goes up against EZY BRS-BCN service, which is twice daily in summer i believe, plus Bristol also has daily GRO and part weekly REU flights both with Ryanair and both also advertised as Barcelona, so the thought that a 3 times a week flight is going to win thousands of passangers back is perhaps a tad far fetched, especially as Vuelling is not a well known brand in the UK and will have no where near the marketing power of Europes two biggest LOCO's, so in my humble opinion I believe the route will do ok and perhaps retain those pax that used the Baby service and those wishing to fly from CWL and no where else, however I cannot realistically see EZY or FR quaking in their boots, what is apparent to me though is that behind the seen CWL management must be talking to a lot of airlines as they now have 2 new airlines flying to the airport that dont really serve any other uk areas, and not the run of the mill airlines that you would expect, these are foreign carriers who would be very wary of a new route to a small airport in the current financial sitiuation, so there must be some hard work going in somewhere.

Bye bye baby...baby goodbye. :sad:


End Of An Era. Last Flight Left Cardiff Today to Belfast Let Us Hope We Will Get A New Lo Cost Airline To Replace Them Soon

An article that you maybe interested on about bmibaby and it's Cardiff base. click here

i,ve already read it very sad day for the staff good luck to them

Mathers-of-wales,

Thanks for this as I think this is a very interesting article and pretty much reflects our experience at MAN. It may be worth baring in mind that BMIbaby never 'owned' any aircraft to my knowledge so were very dependent on the the short term whims of their financial backer (Lufthansa). With regard to Manchester although I was sorry to see them go not least because of the professionalism of their staff but to be honest since baby have gone it has cleared there air somewhat and we have had at MAN more investment and commitment from other carriers. In my view BMIbaby's management didn't seem to know what they were doing form one day to the next. For CWL perhaps Vueling's interest is the shape of things to come. Cardiff is a great city and I'm sure it's airport will be back on form providing a great selection of destinations before long. Best wishes, DomyDom

Helvetic have announced new flights from BRS starting next month...does anyone know if this is the end of the CWL route? If not, it will be given the comparable fares!
CWL management must do something about this, very quickly!

What do you suggest, hold Helvetic management with guns to their heads until to they submit to the will of the Mysterons (sorry i meant CWL management)?:rolleyes:

Looks like the flights are still operating from Cardiff but its via Bristol ! Obviously they are trying to improve the loads

no cwl flight showing after march

I believe that there is nothing that management can do as it is the airlines decision to operate the route.

However i do find it suspicious that the airline are operating on the same days allthough at different times.

I know that Cardiff management deal on this route was based on long term success and growth on the route which is comendable.

I hope however that this is not the beginning of the end of Zurich at Cardiff Airport as they are a great airline.

Well, its either one or the other, but whichever it is another reflection of the state of the Welsh economy and the effect that has on all types of travel from CWL. Western Mail a couple of days ago reported high and increasing levels of unemployment and poverty in South Wales. Ergo, how many takers for the gilded slopes of Switzerland this winter? BRS is another matter, the cosy fires of Middle England (cotswolds) still have some folding stuff to splash out on such luxuries, so Helvetic have done the commercially sensible thing.
There were 18 commercial departures (plus or minus) at Cwl today, that is not going to pay the milkman.

Any chance of a Flybe base now BMIb has pulled out?

When all these LoCo operations jumped on the bandwagon there was Ryanair, EasyJet, Go, KLM Buzz and, if memory serves me correct, the ailing BMI decided to, belatedly, jump on a well played bandwagon in, pretty much, one last ditch attempt to save this ailing airline.

But, alas, they were too late, all the others had already nabbed the 'cushty' markets and BMIBaby were left with the leftovers that none of the others were interested in ... and for very good reason.

So, by attempting such operations from such low-yield catchment area(s) has served to provide the local communitity(s) with false hope, a false impression, that there was ever a profitable business structure to be had there in the first instance.

As a rule of thumb the larger the aircraft then the cheaper, per seat, it is to operate, anything less than a Boeing or Airbus sized aircraft simply couldn't compete on price with fare levels from BHX & BRS.

by starting zurich from brs.makes we wonder how many pax from the brs area travel over the bridge for the service. when brs starts will it dillute the pax nunbers from cwl. i suppose only time will tell.be nice thou if it had some idea how many travelled over from this way to use it.perhaps it might give some indication why they starting from brs.

To my mind, it is obvious what is happening here. Helvetic's pax numbers on CWL are pretty awful, and they are trying a double drop to make up numbers - I would guess they have some sort of contractual obligation with CWL to operate for a period of time, and to offset losses in the meantime, they are running a combined route.

What if this works? Good for both. If BRS is great, well at the end of some predetermined period, that would be it for CWL.

This proves the point that a lot of people have been making, but sadly too many people don't want to hear it, such is their blind spot re CWL - the market is small, highly focused and highly seasonal. That alone explains Baby's good decision.

TA

yeo valley,

Why would people from BRS cross the bridge to catch a 3 x per week service CWL/ZRH when there is a 3 x PER DAY service BHX/ZRH and with onward connections throughout Europe and the World?

ppl do strange things. perhaps more leisure than buisness ppl.

NUMB3R CRUNCH1NG
 

11 Arrivals today? Over 2 hours on average for a flight landing. Very quiet...:zzz:

Saturday's boards are terribly poor with only 11 arrivals

Its going to be a long winter for CWL this year!!

Just been on the local news here that someone from the wag has said deal on table for New York route and First Minister needs to go over there to sign it. Yeah right mate believe it when it happens! I'm sure with the govt having more control of their own budget here the general public will be happy to see their well earned taxes paying for a doomed route.

Funny no one from the airport was available for comment according to the beeb but they did give themselves a pat on the back for securing a soon to be gone Zurich route and the new Barcelona

route.BBC News - Helvetic's Cardiff-Zurich flight's Bristol stopover

B.A. Diverts
 

CWL has a BA landed from Riyadh, also a possible Washington. Are there problems at LHR? Also, KLM both Canx? Anyone know why? thanks. :ok:

My guess Foxtrot Oscar Golf?

no guessing about it....
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/EGLL.html

Took a 767 from LPL to LGW this morning. 4 times round the hold at WILLO and got in with 200m rvr. Lovely on top above about 800 feet but couldn't see the big 'sky-bridge' thingy as we taxied underneath it.

Then 3.5 hours in a car to get home.:(

Forgive me for asking but what has it to do with Cardiff ?