The same people that were near to bring the Airport back to profitability. CWL was part of the deal that brought Luton and Belfast to the group. They didn't really want it and that was evident in the lack of investment and restricted running that the owners put on the Airport and its management team.

I've raised this a number of time but it appears to have been ignored. There have been many changes at CWL since the WG took over. Many signs of diversification, many signs of increased passenger numbers and slow progress of increased routes and Airlines. This process hasn't just started since covid/flybe. It started 5years+ ago.
Along with all of that change came investment in the Airfield, airfield equipment and the terminal. All of which was needed but obviously affected the books.

TOM100, you clearly have a grudge against the Airport Management which is starting to show and get boring and repetitive.
Seeing as you seem to know so much, I am very curious to see you put your money where your mouth is and start providing some viable and realistic options to how you would better run CWL, without the belief that you can get anyone off the street to do senior roles, Airlines are banging at the door to use CWL and there isn't a need for ongoing investment.....

Exeter is mentioned a bit and probably is a better comparing with than Bristol. I think the fact that it has less airline's and routes maybe shows that it's making it's money on other parts of the business like the Executive jet side and I believe that they own a business park nearby? Not too mention the former Flybe mro operation and I'm told that they have high out of hours charging which I don't believe CWL has. The non passenger side of the business is what CWL has been building up with the arrival of Global trek and taking over of St Athan. It'll be interesting to see how those operations effect the airports profitability in the future.
As for selling the airport in the future I don't think any WG government could risk it without some sort of golden share and a private owner is no guarantee that WG money won't still end up in the business as any canny owner would surely try and use WG money rather than their own.

Oi think my views are clear - I am not hiding them - if you find my views boring and repetitive then jut don’t bother replying (I don’t ask you to). I could say the same of sycophancy and lack of questioning (but I happen to respect other people’s opinions - even if I don’t agree with them). The current necessity is to take out cost to reflect the new commercial reality. I won’t hide from the fact that the airport cannot have it both ways. If they want to take money from the WG and Welsh taxpayer they have to demonstrate value for money. Whilst I am a taxpayer and they are happy to use our money I will unashamedly ask my representatives to hold this business to account. If they want to stop pretending to be an arms length commercial organisation and become another bloated arm of the Welsh civil service then fine - be upfront and let the electorate decide.

This is is a business taking on more and more debt and not tangibly addressing how they are (even attempting) to balance the books in light of (in their own words) a drop in 80% of their business.

Should anyone who disagrees or who wants to engage in debate (even if u
you don’t agree) just be silent ?
u

Agreed, but CWL has one of the largest MRO facilities in the UK (BAMC), is the capital city of Wales, has a larger catchment area etc - so what are these businesses doing and achieving that CWL seems unable to ?

God, this thread is like a twenty year groundhog day, even down to some of the same characters bickering over why CWL is/is not a business failure. Always has been (apart from tentative green shoots in the mid 2000's) and when I went through there last year and saw the fossilised tumbleweed blowing through the terminal, and always will be. If it wasn't for BAMC it would have been a housing estate years ago, which is hopefully its eventual fate rather than digging up green field around Cardiff. You've got 2 massive aviation sites within spitting distance and not enough business for one of them The dead hand of WG is all over this and I have little doubt it will stagger on for a bit longer as they try to convince the population of Wales that it is a national status symbol and has to have more money (the invisible kind) thrown at it.
Ugh, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!

LOL, somewhat of a contradiction citing two massive aviation sites while suggesting without sufficient business for either of them, perhaps a description of two massive real estate sites might have been more apt given your overall summarisation.

There is an airfield in Swindon with a Honda car plant built upon it, there is an airfield in Ellesmere Port with a Vauxhall/Opel car plant, there is an airfield in Sunderland with a Nissan car plant, there is an airfield in Derby with a Toyota car plant, there is an airfield in Hethel with a Lotus car plant, there is an airfield in Gaydon with Jaguar/Land Rover & Aston Martin car plants, Dyson have taken over Hullavington airfield for their electric cars so it was interesting to learn that Aston Martin are/were moving in to St Athan to develop a business plant there, St Athan would be ideal for non-aviation related industry with it having been perhaps the largest of ex RAF bases but without a size of runway to match and located within the country of government incentives for developing businesses.

CWL could do something to improve upon it's public transport links, by the way what the hell is happening with Cardiff Central bus station, that was one of the few perfect city rail/bus interchanges, on/off a bus and/or train within a couple of minutes walk of each other, what the hell are they doing to it?

But trains to/from the airport, CWL have designated Rhoose station as their airport rail station, Rhoose station was closed for umpteen years, is little more that an open-air platform or two on the coast, exposed to the Severn estuary, with just one train and one airport shuttle bus per hour, is located 2.2 miles from the airport and according to a route planner 6 minutes away

By comparison just 3.6 miles and 7 minutes away from the airport is Barry rail station with, not one but,three trains per hour, an average of one train per 20 minutes, with building(s) to take shelter from the elements and convenient to local services such as food & beverage outlets, why the hell are CWL focusing upon a village rail service rather than a far better town rail service?

In a few lines this has post has exposed the level of governance in the Principality; useless would be perfect adjective to describe Cardiff Council and the Idiots down the Bay. All self serving, pulling in strong public money whilst

uneducated in the real world of actually sweating assets. Still we will have a raft of sixteen year olds voting next May , they will help guide the country to prosperity, especially looking at the recent exam results. Excellent.
.

Macdo has summed it up and given food for thought. The WG aviation strategy (if they have one) should consolidate around one site if they are intent and truly see value in a national airport. Sell of St Athan airfield, use some of the proceeds to relocate Caerdav/eCube to the south side o of CWL (maybe set up an aviation/MRO hub), stop the PSO service (costing millions) to Valley (it’s not like this is a vital link to some outer Hebridean island) - use funds for CWL route development, take cost out of the CWL operations and attempt to turn a profit (or at least to break even). Rather than spreading limited funds across multiple sites and strategies.

CWL (as Macdo points out like in the 00’s) can attract 2-2.5m pax and make money but has a lot of work to do.

My strong view (sorry if this bores some posters) is that it doesn’t have the right leadership, drive, accountability for results etc that is required to achieve this. If you disagree that’s fine but this is my view. I feel it’s just sit back, take the WG money, wait for the airlines to come back and hope for the best.

As Henry Ford said “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got”.

No worries...Cardiff Airport & ya man with a statement is calling on the UK Government to "introduce a package of support measures for the hard pressed aviation sector including suspending APD for a number of years".

Along with just about everybody else in the industry, so he's not alone. Would suspending APD be much help - is it the cost putting people off flying??

Yes BAMC is big, as for the capital city of Wales I'm not sure that is such an advantage that a lot of people think it is. Cardiff doesn't have the profile of say Edinburgh Belfast or Dublin as a destination and Wales doesn't have the profile as a country of the others for various reasons I won't go into.
As for catchment area like Exeter that is seriously impacted by the airport next door maybe more so for CWL.
As for what CWL isn't doing that Exeter isn't i think it needs to be asked what has happened to EXT that hasn't at CWL. EXT seems to have been a more steady airport down to I'd say it's owners who have no doubt invested in the airport whereas that hasn't happened in the past at CWL.

I did read somewhere that it has been suggested that the rail link will move to Barry as part of the metro plans.

Does this look like the airport railway station of a capital city international airport to you?


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....92cd465273.jpg

Firstly Wales isn't a Principality. The Principality of Wales ended in 1536 when it was annexed by England. Secondly as for WG people need to actually vote in a different party if they want change and having 16 and 17 year olds able to vote may well help change that. But would any change effect the airport? I don't think so as all parties consider it important to the country.

Where would you fit Ecube for a start let alone Caerdav. As for the VLY service build a high speed rail link through Wales north to south then it won't be needed.

I have not seen any thing or might have missed it. Ecube has opened a big scrapping yard out in Spain. I cant remember if it was Almeria or Girona.They have out grown St Athan.

it’s in Castellon. I believe this is where BA’s recently (this week) retired 744 G-CIVD went to meet it’s fate.....

https://ecube.aero/latest/high-deman...sh-operations/

Semantics and pedantry are not quite as bad as sarcasm , whoever you are , I admire your unrequited love 💔 for Cardiff Wales (not Principality) Airport . Perhaps we should go back to calling it Rhoose . Face it truthfully, it’s a busted flush, most of the population of South Wales are prepared to travel to Lulsgate for their jollies . Scrap it and spend the millions wasted on a better infrastructure instead . You would get a more profitable return planting potatoes on the land .

i used to argue the case for the airport with the ex pilot , living in Tiago Island who has ultimately been proved correct , The corona virus has done for CWL .

CWL will recover from the effects of Covid19. Despite people like you who seem desperate to shut it down and just seem to have nothing but anything negative to say about it. So what if more people use Bristol? More people from Devon use Bristol as well yet no one calls for Exeter to be closed down.
From a personal perspective I'm sure I'll be using it in the year's to come to travel to the world just as I'll also use Bristol and Heathrow and Birmingham in the years to come.

There is a lot of space at the southern end of the disused runway for Caerdav and eCube - if indeed their operations are viable.

https://www.google.com/search?safe=s...ABMWe6zNaF_T-M

Anything to suggest they are not?

It would certainly make sense to consolidate the 2 airfields and there is space on the South side for a BAMC sized shared hangar or 2 smaller hangars. Comparison of both airfields attached. Blue is Caerdav & yellow Ecube
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e306858cd3.jpg

This is also a good summary of current ongoings at the Airport along with challenges faced. It does highlight the support that CWL needs, however that doesn't mean its not a viable business in the long term... the link will open a WG pdf document.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&so...hqygRIf7zXLwih

Moving heavy engineering sites is such a quick and easy thing to do (and cheap!). The neighbours will be delighted! :ok:

Did someone mention moving heavy engineering, such as a complete fleet of Nimrods manufactured in Wales?


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....4dd6598199.jpg

What ? So it’s too difficult let’s not even investigate. Neighbours didn’t like T5, LTN expansion or BRS new terminal - all were able to overcome objections in arguably much more sensitive areas. As you say may have been or being considered but a visible strategy to save and/or secure the business would be good to see. Didn’t CWL recently bid (and lost) for the site as a location for some Boeing maintenance facility ?

I think Caerdav would be ideal. With Ecube I think it would be more about space for aircraft storage especially big aircraft like 747s which no doubt they'll be busy with soon enough. And the potential for FOD at an active airfield like cwl when they're breaking up the aircraft.
And yes they did bid for a Boeing maintenance facility.

Between 20th September and 18th October Ryanair are adding a Sunday flight to the Faro route taking it back to 3 weekly! A bit of good news for CWL!

Bit more Ryanair news for Summer 2021.
Malaga is now onsale the route operates 3 weekly Mon, Wed & Fri from 2/6/21 to 30/8/21
Malta 2 weekly Wed & Sun and Faro Mon & Fri are onsale as well.
Just missing Barcelona 😕

Am sure we all knew this already... :rolleyes:

Cardiff Airport “needs true low cost airline” to compete

Whatever happened to Flyforbeans?

Don’t they have that already with RYR, just not the selection of routes?!

Is QR DOH gone for good?

I wish he had done his homework before opening his mouth. The market at Cardiff will sustain a low cost airline in the Summer, it will not sustain it during the Winter. You might say that this describes the whole of the low cost market but at Cardiff it is more pronounced because whilst some of the catchment is wealthy enough to to take multiple flights a year, a large part of the catchment historically only went on holiday once a year and now can only afford to go on holiday once a year if at all.
You cannot take back passengers from Bristol by, let us say, using support from the Welsh Government because that would be illegal state aid. After December 31st, we don’t know what the competition policy will be of the UK Governemnt but we already know that they won’t allow APD to be devolved and therefore don’t support the Welsh Government taking passengers back from Bristol.
Ther is a risk in having a dominant low cost based airline at an airport the size of Cardiff. They would demand and get lower aeronautical charges, other remaining airlines (such as they are) would demand the same to enable them to compete with the low cost carrier. The low cost carrier could then use commercial power to keep those charges low, taking away aeronautical income that would deny funds for further development of the airport.
Up until coronavirus, the policy of attracting low cost airlines to fly from their foreign bases seems very sensible until Cardiff could achieve a large enough density of passengers to allow multiple airlines to compete. The problem at Cardiff was the deal with Flybe which didn’t give the passenger numbers and growth that would have been provided by a low cost airline but dominated the airport and therefore discouraged competition.
I was never encouraged that the airport would get through the loss making part of the deal into the nirvana of the profitable end of the deal because nobody could tell me what the Flybe strategy would be in 3 years never mind ten years.

That statement came from the chairman of two budget airlines who clearly has his head up his backside if he believes that EZY are a, quote, "true low cost airline" and if he thinks, quote, "people simply keep driving along the M4… and get to Bristol", that BRS is anywhere near to the M4 whilst he serves to reignite the CWL vs BRS animosity, that's truly mature of him!

Quoting this poster that CWL can sustain a loco during the summer, yes but what routes would they serve beside the same old 'bucket and spade' summer holiday destinations that have been successfully served from CWL since the launch of IT holidays and long before loco's became a more recent fad.

Are Vueling not a loco, have Vueling not been serving some of these bucket and spade routes successfully for a number of years now, have the likes of Thomas Cook (RIP) and TUI, to name but two, not been serving these bucket and spade routes also, CWL can successfully operate UK domestic routes with modestly sized aircraft, if BRS can do it with medium jet operators who have squeezed the airport for the lowest fees whilst transporting budget travellers many of whom shall keep their money in their pockets when transitting the airport then let them do so, if CWL were to even think about taking on BRS head-to-head in a price war then whilst the travelling public may benefit, BRS would ultimately win due to it's geographic location whilst both airports and airlines would suffer along with the Welsh taxpayers who subsidise CWL!

What springs to mind is a discussion I once had with a former colleague regarding tour operators, he was ex Britannia, Thomson were the No.1 UK tour operator, both on quality and quantity, Airtours came along and overtook them on numbers, on holidays sold and passengers transported but to do so they simply couldn't offer the quality that Thomson offered, should CWL be focusing on quality or quantity?

I imagine for the likes of TUI that CWL is pretty profitable for them. The amount of times you'll hear that CWL is more expensive than BRS, not just with low cost flights but with tour operator Holidays too. TUI (and TCX) had to deal with a lot more competition at BRS, BHX, and LGW. Which meant through basic economics that flights/holidays are cheaper. A family could save £100s flying from those rather than CWL.
CWL can often be competitive and even cheaper than other Airports. I have often been of the view that because there is less capacity offered at CWL but in general package holidays are very popular in Wales, that flights fill up quicker than at other bigger airports. Eventually the holiday prices do increase and that should likely make it more profitable for the carrier. That being said, if demand is there and capacity has been added, as with TUI, will that dilute profits if CWLs catchment can't fill the extra capacity?
So I agree, is less quantity better for a more profitable operation for the Airline, or is there a fine line at CWL between good profit and extra capacity with reduced profits. That is why i also believe Vueling haven't expanded, to maintain high profits but not off capacity to it's full potential (during summer).

The more media presence on the topic should hopefully help build momentum to restoring the passenger numbers at CWL. I'm now of the mindset that someone like Wizz would be best placed. No competition with themselves at BRS and a lower cost base than EZY. It would take some building up of brand awareness in South Wales but if Wizz can't make it work, then no-one can.
What didn't help Flybe was having EZY and FR who could easily undercut their fares over the bridge to squeeze Flybes performance at CWL. Even EZY would struggle to undercut Wizz prices.

Perhaps what may be the answer is a new Wales based tour operator, there was Red Dragon Travel with Airways International Cymru, Aspro Holidays with Inter European Airways, with all these WG incentives for businesses can't they find a new tour operator with an in house or contracted airline focused on primarily serving Wales and without charging a supplement to do so?

The WG shouldn't be funding Tour Operators as it does nothing for the Welsh economy. However the suggestion of independent tour operators utilising a carrier should work. I posted an example of this elsewhere where if say Wizz were to base, the likes of Travel House & Hays could use them. Its viability would be better as the flights would be supported by holiday makers as well as Wizz flight only bookings. Im not sure if Tour Operators use the Ryanair flights to transport their customers but I know Vueling get used often.

If routes from CWL can't be run viably then the question needs to be asked as to why the routes are running in the first place? I'm sure we'd all love to see Air Wales reborn serving the domestic routes, with the right cost base, timings and aircraft it could work, but then it would remain a small specialist carrier with limited route options. Personally i feel the Flybe deal was all wrong. Another WG todger swinging vanity project to say 'look at the routes we have' that eventually the realisation become clear that some of the routes weren't sustainable. There could be many reasons as to why, but for now its back to square one in hope that we see a return to the routes that were viable.

Everyone needs to realise that the reset button has been hit again, just like it was in the early 2010s, and it will take several years for CWL to build back up. Consolidate and concentrate on what works, rebuild passenger confidence in looking at CWL and using it and making routes profitable for Airlines.

Where do you get the scale to do this? And wouldn't a Cardiff based company mainly be serving South Wales?

What is the end game for WG - what would they regard as a "success" - operating at a profit? increased passenger numbers? "business friendly" flights to places of commercial/industrial importance? more links to hubs for global connectivity? cheap "bucket and spade" flights for welsh holidaymakers?

Quote...The WG shouldn't be funding Tour Operators as it does nothing for the Welsh economy.

Teesside mayor doesn’t think so!

Last time I checked it was due to restart at the end of October