Yeah but excellent Amsterdam figures as many seem to predict a nose dive on that route due to Qatar arriving!

The welsh government does want to expand the service and sought permission for all the seats to be sold on the J41 which was refused. It sounds like then they are adding extra flights! Which is really good!

What dates in May? I can only find 2x daily flights.

TCX - Summer 2019

TCX have updated the schedule and it shows that in Summer 2019, a SmartLynx A320 will be based, which is the same as Summer 2018. The number of flights per week will drop to 14 down from 16 in 2018.

In 2019, there will be 14x weekly departures with the following changes from Summer 2018.
DLM x3 (+1 on 2018)
PMI x2 (-1 on 2018)
TFS x2 (no change)
ZTH x2 (no change)
NBE x1 (+1 on 2018) *New route
AYT x1 (no change)
LCA x1 (no change)
REU x1 (no change)
RHO x1 (no change)​​​​​​​

ACE - Route dropped (-1 on 2018)
BOJ - Route dropped (-1 on 2018)
IBZ - Route dropped (-1 on 2018)

SUMMARY
In 2018, the weekly AYT was operated by a BRS based TCX A321 on a W-Pattern.
In 2019, the weekly AYT will be operated by a CWL based A320 on a Saturday afternoon which will take the place of the IBZ and BOJ flights that operated that time slot in 2018.

SCHEDULE (Departure times from CWL)
Mon: ZTH - 06:50 / DLM - 16:05
Tue: PMI - 07:10 / TFS - 14:15
Wed: NBE - 06:00 / RHO - 14:55
Thu: ZTH - 06:00 / DLM - 15:10
Fri: TFS - 06:10 / DLM - 16:30
Sat: PMI - 07:10 / AYT - 14:10
Sun: REU - 07:40 / LCA - 14:00

Feels like Thomas Cook have taken a step backwards. 3 routes culled and 2 weekly flights less. It's a shame they can't use non based aircraft or airlines to expand their offering like TUI has done at CWL .

How is the smarlynx a320 aircraft crewed .Is it smarlynx flight deck and Thomas Cook cabin crew or is it smartlynx flight deck and smartlynx cabin crew .

Smartlynx flight crew and Thomas Cook cabin crew.

New airbridge is up and running on stand 9.
KLM the first to use it.
https://twitter.com/Cardiff_Airport/status/1075454685232943104?s=19

What capacity increases are they proposing at LHR and BHX? (Details of MAN, CWL and LGW increases here (among others)): https://www.routesonline.com/news/38...as-of-21dec18/

To be fair Edinburgh got a decent capacity uplift with the introduction of the A359. Clearly the Cardiff route must be doing reasonably well to warrant a daily service! Good news for the airport!

Qatar's CWL-DOH operated daily in summer 2018 from 18 June. It dropped to 5 x weekly for the current winter.

November stats for CWL DOH with Qatar.
Average pax figures were 119 per flight,which works out at 47%

Likely the route is commercial dead duck, but luckily QR aren't really a commercial enterprise, and the Welsh government have underwritten it for now.

Oh come on the service hasn't even operated for a year yet. No one knows the numbers and what profit they are making on ANY of their UK routes.

I doubt they're making megabucks anywhere away from London and possibly MAN - but that isn't necessarily an issue, since as I said QR isn't there as a profit machine, more as a vanity project. However in view of the alleged deal that they have with the Welsh government they are doubly safe as Cardiff for the.

You're right about a development period, it's just a shame that in today's industry the old 2 year rule of thumb has by and large gone out of the window.

That's hardly a paltry sum, and be assured that it was probably a deal maker / breaker. But that's neither here nor there, if QR are giving the route 2 years to start turning a profit then that's fine. It does however stick in the throat that as the UK isn't properly federalised, what the Welsh and Scottish governments can do, no region of England can and that isn't a level playing fields in anyone's book.