NYC and Orlando and increase on the Caribbean and maybe Toronto but honestly the rest you can forget. Like has been said before Shannon is unique because of the Irish-American connection but many of those routes are seasonal i believe and just because routes work from one airport doesn't mean they'll work from another especially if they are in different countries.

What Caribbean routes does CWL offer?

Barbados and Jamaica during the winter with TUI and P&O Cruises.

I think we're clutching at straw's if we count either of those as destinations from Cardiff. They operate what, two or three times in an entire year?

By that reasoning you can claim any ad-hoc charter flight, say that for a sporting event such as rugby or a World Cup is a destination served from the relevant departure point. It's not.

Next winter between the end of November 2018 and April 2019 there will be 10 flights. 4 P&O Barbados flights 3 TUI Barbados flights and 3 TUI Jamaica flights all operated by TUI. Considering they are operating from Cardiff Airport I'd say they were destinations especially as they happen every year whereas Rugby World Cup flights are special events while these are pretty regular through out the winter months.

As I say, we're clutching at straw's if we count either as a Cardiff destination.

Cardiff's only current long haul destination is Doha. Let's see how that does before we start dreaming off New York, Boston, Barbados and so on.

Why would Cardiff need to dream of Barbados when it already has the route! Same with Jamaica! With them it's about growing the frequencies! Last time i checked the Caribbean was considered long haul. And the success of Doha isn't a factor in whether Cardiff can sustain US flights as the 2 are different markets.
I'm all for being realistic but a lot of people are just down right negative when it comes to Cardiff when at other airports they wouldn't be :ugh:

They are cruise charters. Cardiff does not serve Barbados or Jamaica. Passengers get off the flight and straight onto a cruise ship.

Spending time in either destination is not a option.

If someone from South Wales wants to spend a week in Barbados these fights are as useless as a chocolate fire guard. These fights cannot be used with a land based holiday in Barbados. So just how is Barbados available from Cardiff?

TUI flights (no matter how infrequent) Cardiff to Barbados can be booked as flight only and therefore your comment regarding combining flights with a non-cruise land-based holiday are factually incorrect.

Only the P&O flights are pure cruise.
The TUI flights can be done as cruise only, cruise and stay packages or a package holiday, same with Jamaica. I suggest you look on TUI.com holiday section for Cardiff and for the cruises for TUI look under Cardiff and search with any destinations and they'll come up.

December Stats 2017
80,045 passengers used the airport up 10% on 2016. The rolling year for 2017 was 1,464,180 up 8.9%.
Top 5 routes for December 2017
1. Amsterdam 11,571
2. Dublin 8043
3. Edinburgh 7985
4. Tenerife South 6447
5. Alicante 6062

Top 5 routes by % growth for December 2017
1. Bridgetown +104%
2. Chambery +88%
3. Berlin TXL +59%
4. Anglesey +57%
5. Munich +37%

December Stats 2017

Aberdeen 627 +9%
Anglesey 830 +57%
Belfast City TBA
Edinburgh 7985 +1%
Glasgow 2840 -10%
Humberside 66
Jersey 1206 +12%
Liverpool 40
Manchester 266
Newcastle 787 -12%
Vienna 155
Zagreb 131
Enontekio 187 -51%
Ivalo 358
Chambery 371 +88%
Nice 125
Paris CDG 5653 +4%
Berlin TXL 2171 +59%
Frankfurt Main 48
Munich 2040 +37%
Gibraltar 162
Cork 1463 +35%
Dublin 8043 +11%
Milan 1556 -11%
Rome FCO 1254
Amsterdam 11,751 +16%
Faro 836 +57
Alicante 6062 +3%
Madrid 82
Malaga 4145 +4%
Arrecife 3081 +6%
Las Palmas 1806 +10%
Tenerife South 6447 -5%
Pajala Yllas 379 +2%
Geneva 472 -34%
Zurich 128
Bridgetown 589 +104
Montego Bay 298

Looks as though QR have pulled the Monday and Thursday flights for the first 7 weeks of operation.

Yep, coincidently timed with Ramadan.
Also it goes weekly at the start of the holiday season which may be a reflection of how seasonal CWL can be.

And now queue the posts of 'it was never going to work' 'they'll drop it before it starts' and 'it's failed before it's started'! Lol

Hardly an encouraging start for Cardiff's only long haul route.

Too early to suggest that, as Jerry123 rightly points out, Ramadan always brings with it a reduction in demand from other airports on services through the Middle East. CWL is likely to be little different.

It could be due to Ramadan but that begs the question why put it on sale if you were going to reduce it a few weeks later and thus upsetting pax who would have purchased tickets on flights for those days. Another question is why reduce it from the beginning of May when Ramadan actually runs from 16th May to 15th June. It is all very intriguing but then so is dropping it to 5x weekly for the Southern Hemisphere Summer!

3rd long haul route.

Probably political pressure for it to be daily and 5 weekly in the winter is more sensible.
It's a new service and will take a while to bed in.

I'd suggest Ramadan has little to nothing to do with this reduction in frequency.

As correctly pointed out already, why schedule the service to be daily and then reduce to five per week just a few weeks later? Its not as if Ramadan is a pop-up event which QR didn't know about a few weeks ago.

Secondly, the vast, vast majority of passengers using Qatar from CWL will be connecting onward to the likes of Australia, Thailand and so on. Very few will be terminating their journey in Doha.

Thus, the excuse of Ramadan is just that, an excuse.