I would never rule out a return of MOL and his gang. CWL might just be desperate enough to give him a good offer. And I'm sure CWL management would rather have passengers going through their terminal than not.

CWL has so much potential, and it is said to see the recent events! Fingers crossed for some airline to save the day, but unless you want it to be the size of EXT or SOU, down place all your hope on BE!

SOU at the moment handles quite a few more passengers and many more passenger flights than CWL(on smaller aircraft but still a big difference) so I would say it is something the CWL management should aspire to be like traffic wise!! Flybe could probably do fairly well with a couple of E175's on the European routes from CWL and I would leave the longer routes to the charters/possibly FR.

Some on here remind me of the Teesside crowd who moaned about baby being expensive when they were there, slagged them off when they'd gone and what have they got now? nothing other than a handful of charters.

Its the same with the BFS nerds who think baby should fly to new airports rather than airports that are already served by BFS? what planet are they on? you follow the money and that is in order of volume return ALC/AGP/PMI/FAO & IBZ for about 6 weeks why risk CPH or MAD

WW will have got a deal and half with this lot and maybe they wont all work, but you'll never know until you try, as for prices, well have a look at the loads ex EMA to say AGP when you have FR and various IT companies against you WW still do three a day some days.

No one will start summer flights this year from CWL and i can't see much happening in the winter, if you get a new start up say FFB and they are £10 more expensive than Easy or Ryan from BRS most locals will cross the bridge, remember most on here have a vested interest in CWL, passengers don't !!! never mind the quality feel the price!!

I feel very sorry for the crews displaced, but if CWL can find a new 737 operation great, FR would be bad for any ex baby crews, they are not really interested in type rated pilots other than Captains and that will only be as a summer contract.

Well, if the current situation doesn't knock some of the arrogance out of the management and 'vested interests' around CWL, nothing will.

A sensible idea would be to 'manage' CWL to a size where it is sustainable. If that means it is more like EXT than EMA, so be it. The pax will dictate what they want to buy, the airlines will supply that and nothing more, its up to CWL to cut its cloth according to its means. While FLYBE is no less cut throat than anyone else in LoCo, they are partcularly good at niche selling (Cwl is a very limited niche) hence my tiny bit of faith that they might last the course.

I'm giving odds now on the Helvetic run to ZRH not lasting, any takers?:eek:

ASW NQY-CWL Dropped
 

It appears ASW have dropped there NQY-CWL service.

No flights available for booking from 28th April.

The aircraft used to operate NQY-CWL-NCL-CWL-NQY. Flights fron NCL to CWL operated under a T3 flight number.

T3 will continue to operate 2 x Daily from NCL to CWL and will from the start of may offer a early morning departure from NCL

cardiff [rhoose] airport
 

Radio Wales carried an interview with the Managing Director of Rhoose airport,together with an Aviation Expert? and a local travel agent. I could not believe the attitude of the Managing Director,the failings of Cardiff airport was, in his opinion caused by everyone else not the managment of the airport. A quite opposite opinion to that of the local travel agent. With this attitude I can now understand why CWL is failing. In my day Bristol was a lesser airport,but thanks to GOOD management it has progressed well [still bloody awful to get to by road] I speak as someone who learned to fly at the Glamorgan Flying club Rhoose,had my first aviation position as a F/O with Cambrian Airways at Rhoose and finished my flying life by taking the first B747-400 for maintenance into Rhoose

You only need to read MD's interview for BBC to think 'what the hell are you playing at?' BBC News - Cardiff Airport's future in spotlight as bmibaby exit


I know journalism can be ott, but in it he basically says that they had been expecting the Baby announcement for a while 'it's been predictable for three or four years' and wondered what it would be like without them. Sorry but surely common sense would say if your predicting that its going to happen you would be pro active as a management team and go out find and alternative airline before your left in the learch as has now happened.
For example when CO left BRS, the team were very quick in getting Aer Lingus back in on DUB route to offer passangers an alternative by clearing US customs in DUB, and also quick in getting KLM on a 4th rotation, ok not direct flights, but still shows the public they're working hard to make a succesful airport.
I also noticed that with Blue Island annoucing daily Jersey flight from BRS, the airline and airport were quick to show that you can connect to ZRH with them through JER as well, maybe trying to give alternative to the CWL-ZRH route, albeit a funny way round of getting there.
Just want to add that I wish all affected at CWL the best, and hope things work out for you, I am the first to admit being a BRS boy on prune, but nobody likes to see such a rapid demise of an airport like CWL, I have worked there in the past on occasion and everybody was so nice, you dont deserve whats happening and the worry involved.

I have to agree in the above posts, re the MDs reaction to this.
If you knew, or even suspected, you were going to loose a major customer, you'd move heaven and earth to work out how to replace them. I know the economy isn't great, but a serious look must take place on CWL's senior management team with this one.
CWL has a future, and must attract the right airlines for this.
The whole epsiode is truly appalling as its people's lives were talking about - having recently been made redundant, it's not somethign I'd wish on anyone. Good luck

I know Monarch are looking to start flying out of smaller regional bases from summer 2012. Let's just hope that they choose to give Cardiff a go. Fingers crossed the management at CWL will entice them in!!

Monarch! I think not. BRS maybe. To make a seat-only operation work, you need a catchment area. CWL is contsrained by mountain, sea and Swansea, QED low population, of which a substantial proportion are poor.
The BBC article quoted an academic regarding this being one of CWL's periodic contractions and the operation will grow again when times are good. But, after the last recession BRS was smaller than CWL, this time BRS has a massive advantage over CWL, an advantage which CWL will struggle to overcome.

There is certainly an opportunity for someone to step in to fill the bucket and spade routes at the very least.

Taking up macdo's point, the previous recession was that of 1990/1991. I don't know if he means that one or the one of the early 1980s when both aiports were handling about the same number of passengers a year that BRS now handles in a mid-summer fornight, though it is true that CWl handled slightly more each year in those days.

CWL and BRS had not been too far apart in annual passenger numbers at the beginning of the early 90s recession with BRS about 17% ahead of CWL. Both airports lost ground for a couple of years but BRS came out the stronger and in the process passed through the 1 mppa barrier for the first time. In fact, by 1993 BRS was handling 30% more passengers than CWL and has gradually increased the gap ever since.

The current recession is also telling. BRS entered it at a little over 6 mppa, three times more than CWL's 2 mppa but is now four times busier.

That is likely to be the main reason that CWL has been suffering in relation to BRS for the past two decades. The latter is seen as more resilient when times are bad with BRS, though not immune (it lost about 10% of its passenger numbers from its 2008 peak but began a recovery in 2010 which stalled over the winter though), much less negatively affected.

It might be thought that if CWL doesn't put in a big effort in the next year or two the gap between the two will continue to widen inexorably.

macdo has described the CWL core catchment area's make-up which no doubt is a major reason for the relative performances of the two Severnside airports.

My understanding is that the Cardiff base made a profit when Jet A1 was at $900 per tonne, but not at it's current price of $1200+.

EZY must be quids in with hedging 70% of its needs at $734 per tonne.

MV, thanks for fleshing out my generalisations. You are spot on about the early nineties which I remember well. BRS, like CWL, was a nice little airport to do your twin rating at and little else was happening. CWL much the same. So now we have CWL flatlining and BRS, after expidential growth, having a recession respite.
I don't know much about BRS airport management, but I have years of experience watching CWL airport management cocking it up. I think that CWL could be viable if run well, which it patently isn't at the moment.

Hey guys, I am a welsh boy through and through and would love to see Cardiff as a major airport with worldwide flights (pipedream at moment i know). Obviously not living in the CWL catchment area means that I dont fly from Cardiff anymore.

I do have a burning question that i've not asked before and would be interested in feedback.

How many people on here who critize the airport management or airlines for pulling / losing routes have actually put their hands in their pockets and booked flights?

How many of you have booked onto the new ZRH service or the ill fated NQY service?

I dont mean to be rude or funny with this question to anyone but just interested in the answer! :ok:

I understand your questions, and would also be interested to know. But its not the followers of Pprune and WAN that keep the airport propped up and moving.
Its the Welsh public. There are often English accents travelling from CWL. There was alot on the recent P&O cruise charters. The biggest question is, who is going to pay for the marketing to get the Welsh accent back on the right side of the bridge?

ZRH, in time, will probably do quite well in my opinion. Don't forget, as of next winter, there is 1 less Ski route. Whether Skiiers use Helvetic as a flight only option, or travel agents start doing block bookings from CWL-ZRH and provide a package, is something that can be worked on, and suggested to those agents out there.

NQY was always a stop gap for CWL-MAN and more recently CWL-NCL for T3.
When Skybus operated, not enough advertising was done. When ASW operated, the advertising was pretty good, but aircraft probably too big.

Also Monarch are not neccessarily a seat only operator. They have cosmos, previously a brand known in South Wales and Southwest, albeit quite a while ago. Its an opportunity for a new tour operator to move in on South Wales, with CWL being known mainly as a profitable charter operation for many years.
Personally i do agree BRS would have the edge over CWL in terms of attractiveness of airport, but you never what could happen. If Monarch move into BRS, it may encourage TOM or TCX to expand their CWL base to provide a stronger presence for both CWL and BRS.

For reasons I won't bore you with, I've just been analysing CWL pax data since 1997 (using that as a statistical base of 100), and comparing that with the other UK regional airports (all of them, minus H&I, London, CI, IoM in effect), and against BRS.

I didn't see what I expected to see.

Discounting the last news from WW, CWL has actually been pretty much on the growth average. Shocking, I know, and not what I thought I'd see, but the numbers are in the public domain, if anyone wants to analyse them. BRS is very much an oddball, statistically; the performance there has been way above the average, so while comparisons with Bristol make scintillatingly awful reading, it's not terribly fair so to do.

TA

So if am not mistaken, if we are looking at year-round, scheduled services CWL will be down to 6 airlines (Aer Arann, Manx2, Helvetic, Flybe, Eastern and KLM), with all of them except Flybe operating a single route (?). How many departures will that be on an average day?

What CWL needs is new charter routes but at gatwick prices not the overpriced Thomson and Thomas Cook rates.

Why do you think people head across the bridge to our rivals - example easyjet routes to corfu/crete/cyprus/turkey if booked in advance are considerably cheaper than booking from CWL.

Would be good to have some greek routes, even for peak season say late may - september. If the price is right they would be full.

In the last 4 yrs i have only used CWL once, the rest are all from bristol - price at the end of the day. I would love to use CWL as its only down the road but if its saving me £70pp + then i will cross the bridge and take my business elsewhere.

Maybe it is not the management we need to look at all the time but the Operators and the monopoly they have.
The welsh i feel are conned by these companies.

leisurelad
 

Its all about economy of scale BRS has it CWL doesn't

I can't imagine that WW pulled the plug for the end of summer because they were making money at CWL