It be great to have MLA back as permanent destination, this is just a one off flight......Air Malta served the route for years and years and surprised no one else has picked up this route.

Yeah Malta is a strange one but it seems that neither Thomas Cook or TUI want to serve it and are quite happy for people to go over the bridge. It is a pity that Ryanair didn't launch it when they launched BFS and ABZ, they seem to be doing well on FAO and TFS so i've no doubt they'd make a success of MLA but again they are quite happy to see the passengers head over the bridge to fill their aircraft. Maybe one for Flybe in the future.

Yeah bit confused with Ryanair, I would have thought they would have added some more destinations as obviously both TFS & FAO are doing well for them.

Would a BE E95 have the range for MLA and would that fit with their CWL routes ? I imagine TUI and other tour operators would sell some seats on it if that happened

The E195 and E175 both have the range. Pretty sure they have the range for Greece as well but I can't see that happening. As for Flybe I'd say Malta would fit in to their routes.
As for Ryanair i can't figure them because with their network they could operate a few destinations into Cardiff that they wouldn't struggle to fill and make money on.

Well it’s just to see things are on the up for CWL, new airlines, new destinations and of course those new (2nd hand) airbridges......

Hopefully more to come over the next few months......would still like some French regional routes but that’s my wish list haha

Why are Ryanair's flights from Cardiff "obviously" doing well?

What's the source of this bold and certain claim?

Passenger loads and the fact that they are still “present” as they do not hang around if the passenger figures are not there !

There has been a marked increase in passenger figures to both TFS & FAO for 2017

Well of course there has been a marked increase in the number of passengers flying to TFS and FAO, there has been a marked increase in the number of flights to both destinations.

However, you do not know the yield being generated by bookings or the overall financial performance of these routes.

Perhaps the reason Ryanair has not further expanded from Cardiff is because these routes aren't making as much money as you "obviously" unfoundedly claim. Perhaps.

Well when you are responsible for boarding these flights and dispatching them then you sort of get a good idea on how the loads actually are.......so yes they are experiencing good pay loads and have done for several months.

Again, you have zero access to or knowledge of how these routes are performing.

If Ryanair was as much of a success from Cardiff as you unfoundly claim (as you admit) I'm sure they would have expanded by now. However, they haven't.

So correct in saying its not the pax numbers on any flight,its the yield that counts. This has happened at BRS and at many airports they serve. Some routes from BRS has been running just about full and they have binned the route. So if FR are happy with the 2 routes out of CWL then they would add routes. With the 2 routes out of CWL with good loads that tells me the yeild is not as good as they want it to be. We all know the loadings on each flight,but there is no way we shall know the yields.
Airlines operate routes to make money as that's the name of the game,not operate routes here there and every where to please airport supporters. It always put a smile on my face when arm chair supporters say this or that route will work,so they must know a lot more than the airlines know, so if they do work without operating the route then airlines would add routes every where.
You have to wonder why FR has not added CWL routes it must be yields are not as good as they should be.
Airlines are a business not a charity for arn chair CEOs

They haven't pulled them. From the figures I've seen the aircraft seem to be pretty full on most flights. If they weren't making money do you really think Ryanair would stick around at little old Cardiff?

Who said anything about charity? Ryaniar must be happy with the yields as they are continuing the flights and as these are non based flights those bases may not have the aircraft to operate extra flights or may feel that for the market the current flights are enough and that additional flights might then effect their yield.
As for Ryanair not adding new routes or not basing only Ryanair knows and maybe the airport knows the reason personally I'd love to ask MOL but I doubt he'd tell a non expert like me! They do seem to be concentrating on expanding in Germany at the moment so I'd suggest that is where their focus is and CWL is small fry compared to that.
In the end it is Ryaniars choice whether they believe CWL will make them money. Personally I think it would but again that is my personal opinion based on the evidence that I've seen and if you look at the historical numbers for what CWL used to sustain in the past that would also suggest more flights even if they were seasonal would be sustainable for airline like Ryanair.

Another factor as well is that there is a massive amount of leakage from CWLs catchment area to other airports and Ryanair will be one of the beneficiaries of that so they may be very cautious in that they don't want to effect their operations at other airports.

That's not strictly so ...

There is such a thing as flooding one's own market, RYR have quite a network of flights out of BHX and BRS, start offering the same or similar destinations out of CWL and they'd be taking their own passengers away from BHX and BRS thus other or all routes may fail, it could be that TFS and FAO are so loaded from these other airports they feel safe to offer a third option but not so with other routes that aren't so well loaded from BHX and BRS.

There's such a thing as walking before running, for years Ryanair ignored CWL, now they're there with a route or two that, so far so good, what with all their recent problems a simple way to test the water ... Have Ryanair been cancelling CWL flights in favour of more profitable routes because of their pilot shortage crisis?

The CWL routes have remained unaffected by the pilot shortage and are very rarely cancelled or even delayed from what I've seen.

Make's me smile that yeo valley mocks, what he calls, arm chair CEO's and whilst he may have a point "Oh let's go to Naples" or whatever by making the post that he did he has become an arm chair CEO himself.

As difficult as this may be for some to understand but behind every commercial decision there is a commercial department making that decision and normally for a very good reason!

So, the average load factor across all routes in November 2017 was 96% - so looks like all flights are doing well. Based on these figures, bums on seats doesn't tell you a lot about whether a route is doing well or not, or whether a base will be expanding or contracting.

The aircraft might have the range according to the manufacturer, however fill it with passengers, luggage and enough fuel for a possible diversion away from MLA if required and you'll find such a significant payload limitation that it becomes a no-go. I think you'll find that all of Flybe's existing charter services to Greece from the U.K. are restricted from carrying a full passenger load.

Surely just because one or two routes do well doesn't mean another new route would?

TFS and FAO are big demand routes and very underserved from CWL. As Harry has said FR probably know there's sufficient Welsh passengers using these BRS services to support CWL flights. TFS and FAO are good routes to build ancillary revenue. Those type of passenger will buy a bag, will pay for golf clubs, will buy a drink or snack on board. Quite often the highly loaded routes that have faced the chop are city break or eastern European routes, where people want a cheap fare and don't buy the extras.

The only possible FR routes I can see duplicating BRS is ACE and maybe LPA and IBZ, both served by EZY and FR. EZY don't serve MLA so FR would potentially be diluting their own yields in BRS to MLA.

The bonus to these flights is that they aren't operated by CWL based aircraft and no associated base costs. This is why I can't see FR basing at CWL until they prove a few more routes can work.

I too fail to see Ryanair opening a base at Cardiff. They have a base very close by at Bristol and South Wales travellers appear happy to travel to BRS.

Further to that I cannot see the demand to support even just one based aircraft. Just where would they fy 14 to 21 weekly departures to?!

IF it were to happen I would have thought something similar to BOH

Malaga, Ibiza, PMI, Alicante, Malta, Gran Canaria, Dublin, Rome, Krakow, Prague, Girona, Murcia are just examples. Plenty of places they can fly to from CWL new and underserved. They operate a 1 aircraft base at Bournemouth so why at Cardiff to complement it's base at BRS and steal a few welsh Easyjet passengers.

Because to introduce such routes from CWL they may be poaching some 40% of their pax from BRS thus both BRS and CWL routes would fail.

Is this Rocket Science or what?

Not necessarily they could end up poaching a lot of Easyjets passengers. Having a base at Cardiff doesn't mean the base at Bristol gets damaged. It's not always CWL or BRS. They can complement each other. TCX and TUI especially TUI are examples of that.

RYR operate out of CWL so have the details of what they're making on these flights.

Now, either they've not thought about operating more flights out CWL, or they have thought about it and decided against it.

Or are planning more routes for the future. It is possible they couldn't add anything new this year.

Jerry 6 of those routes are already operated from CWL. That would destroy yields for both carriers on those routes. If MJV and PRG would work from CWL then they would without a doubt already be operating from BRS.
Leave flybe to the city routes. Coax FR onto some sun routes where they have bases. Maybe even Norwegian as Vueling dont seem interested in new destinations.

caaardiff I know they are. If CWL is to get back to the 2 million passengers mark and then go above it, it will need an expansion of frequencies on many of those routes especially Alicante, Malaga and PMI. The only way that will happen is either by a massive expansion from Vueling (not likely) or by attracting a new carrier whether they are based or not. Whether it be Norwegian or Ryanair they will want to operate frequencies on those routes as they are the main earners at CWL and may well be considered under served like Faro and Tenerife were.

Jerry,

For years the only international business type routing CWL has had has been KLM, KLM have had the monopoly, I've used them myself because there was no other choice from CWL ... Well except that outbound I was ticketed with Air France travelling in a blue F70 to AMS. :)

I see many of you singing and dancing that Qatar have announced a CWL route from next year but has it occurred to any of you that Qatar are to take away the KLM monopoly to M. East and Asia and this might just impact upon KLM's loads and cause them to reduce their frequency of services or pull out of CWL altogether?

Similarly if a competitor, or competitors, spring up in competition to Vueling don't you think that may similarly pee Vueling off and cause them to reduce services or pull out of CWL altogether?

Why does CWL need an expansion of services, has there been a baby boom in S. Wales in recent years? I'm pretty sure that if the loads of Vueling and others were so great they would be increasing their services by themselves and not need prompting by airport enthusiasts.

Don't go shopping for jam if the bread and butter is likely to go walkabout!

Harry Wayfarers,
I too use KLM a lot to get to the US and i honestly don't think they will pull out or cut their frequencies because of Qatar. Their offerings at CWL are much more broader. People use them to fly to China, the USA, Canada, South America, Africa and all over the world. Also a lot people use them to fly to places in Europe from regional France, Eastern Europe, Italy , Germany and Norway are examples of destinations that i've heard people flying to using them. Qatar's focus is on attracting people flying to India, the Middle East, SE Asia and China using Heathrow to and from Wales and the South West and of course to attract the 90,000 people a year travelling between Wales and Australasia. Many of the adverts for Qatar for CWL feature Sydney quite prominently.

As for Vueling i agree if a competitor turned up and dumped 10 weekly flights on each of their routes then they'd likely run but if someone like Ryanair added 2 to 3 weekly flights on their routes then i don't see them going anywhere, the example of that is Faro Ryanair added 2 weekly flights and instead of cutting or pulling off Flybe have actually expanded from 4 weekly to 5 weekly flights. Vueling have slowly expanded their frequencies at CWL over the years. Whether they will continue to or actually can add more frequencies only time will tell.

Why does CWL need an expansion of services? Demand for flights from it's catchment area is high and will continue to grow as Wales gets wealthier and as tourism grows. If you look at the Flybe base it is generally doing quite well. They've provided the flights and people are using them. Roughly over 4 million people fly to and from the airports catchment area every year. 1.6 million of those use BRS, 1.3 million use CWL, 1 million use London airports and the rest use airports like BHX and MAN. The demand is there it's just not being served from South Wales at the moment and that is part of the airports challenge to get as many people flying for the holidays, weekend aways and business trips directly from Wales and not England, to boost the Welsh economy with better business links and provide tourists from all over the world direct or better access to Wales so they visit our beautiful country and spend their money here boosting the Welsh economy. To do that it needs airlines and routes and more frequencies on routes as well.

P.S the numbers I gave are from 2016 and from a progress report/presentation done by the Airport to the Senedd at the beginning of the year. Pretty sure it's online somewhere.

A case of "be careful what you wish for". However I'm sure that AF/KL will be doing an ongoing an analysis of what percentage of their CWL/AMS business connects onward to destinations served through Doha, but to retain the business and compete, I think they'd be more likely to retain the frequency but trip capacity should push come to shove

Jerry ... Subtlety isn't RYR's strongest suit ... Just ask their pilots :)

With a somewhat restriction on business type routes from BHX in the some four years that I utilised from BHX the likes of LH, SAS, KLM, AF and Swiss I do admit that the majority of my ultimate destinations were in Europe, Sweden, Latvia, Ukraine, Italy, Romania, Germany but such was the nature of my work, I did utilise Swiss one time round trip HKG and my KL/AF from CWL was outward to SIN and return from MNL.

The CWL KLM route, as I recall, started with a once or twice daily F27 combined with BRS, then CWL got it's own SF340's, then F27's and/or F50's, then F70's and up to three rotations daily, more recently some description of Embraer ... however many seats they may have, I mean KLM have dpne everything for that route to work for the CWL catchment area and whether or not Qatar impacts upon them by 5 or 10 or 15% Qatar shall impact upon them.

Can you go fetch me the salt cellar please!

When it comes to KLM and AMS it is essentially a Sky Team route and if you look at other airports in the UK they go up against not only the ME3 but other hub airlines and seem do fine a those airports. If you take Newcastle as an example they are not only up against Emirates daily 777 but the BA LHR shuttle and Aer Lingus and even there own partners Air France yet they regulary use 737 aircraft on most of the frequencies. The airport growing with people in Wales fly more from Cardiff then that can only benefit them in the long run.

I wouldn't bet on it.

Jerry, you certainly can't knock your enthusiasm and passion for CWL. It's great to see such support. But I do feel there needs to be an air of caution against anything major happening at CWL. The market is slim. No matter how much you compare CWL to other Airports around the UK, CWL could well be in a sticky situation. BE growing it's city routes could affect KLM. QR will likely effect KLM. KLM could throw it's toys out of the pram and shift capacity over to BRS, where it knows Welsh passengers will fly from.
Look at how much publicity QR have had over the launch, no doubt that has got KLM's backs up. I noticed that a sudden KLM campaign started out of nowhere a few weeks after the QR launch.
Same with FR. FR are a business, they aren't a business that are known for making business friends and working in co-operation with other Airlines.

What CWL needs to do is make it profitable for the Airlines. If that means restricting growth to support current Airlines then so be it, provided those Airlines show some sign of growth. Look at the comment regarding BRS and Jet2, where they want to continue to support their current Airlines growth rather than create a blood bath.

I guess we will see in the future but I'd be very shocked and surprised if KLM left the airport over the arrival of Qatar and any future growth especially as KLM and Air France and partners are expanding their offerings from CWL with the new Jet Airways codeshare and expanded Air France codeshares on Flybe's CDG service.

Just seen an article on Wales Online and the first 2 destinations mentioned are Sydney and Amsterdam! :)
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/stunning-destinations-you-can-fly-14043109.amp?__twitter_impression=true

Jerry123's example of NCL isn't a bad one - new airlines don't just cannibalize existing operators, but also stimulate the market.

Amongst other things Newcastle does not have a much bigger rival just 50 miles away from which it's immediate catchment are more than happy to use at the drop of a hat. Cardiff does.

With GLA and EDI the introduction of ME routes with EK/QR etc - pax numbers to AMS KEF and DUB transit hubs increased, so I wouldnt worry about losing those. Whether QR can fill a 787 is another story....