But KEF is merely Icelandair's hub for their route network to/from N. America and I don't believe CWL is served by Aer Lingus.

Well Flybe codesharing with AF reduces the AF pax that may have codeshared on KL, when I travelled AF CWL/SIN I had no other choice than to route CWL/AMS/CDG/SIN.

KLM take their Asian market very seriously, until a year or so back they were the only carrier offering direct services between Europe and the Philippines, now there is another carrier but they're cr@p! ... And a third if IST is considered to be in Europe!

It depends how you do your measuring Harry.

AMS from Cardiff is not the quickest or indeed best route to the Philippines.

If you have done the trip to Asia many times over 20 years you will know the old flag carriers such as KLM are poor on service and high on price. If I was in Cardiff heading for Asia, as the old joke goes,I would not start from here.

Flybe have filled the gap in their schedule on Wednesdays with an afternoon flight to Jersey. Jersey will be 4 weekly for Summer 18.

the second tui flight long haul departed cwl today for montego bay. they will have a nice Christmas weather wise. the first long haul was to Barbados a few weeks ago now.

Jay Sata,

KLM can be hit or miss on service, I've had some good flights with them and some not so good, I still recall when they withdrew serving beer in European economy class, that flight I was actually ticketed with Ukraine International (who are very generous when it comes to serving beer) and I subsequently complained to UIA that if they are to codeshare then to please ensure that their codesharers offer a similar level of service as they themselves offer.

The time, from CWL, I was doing an open-jaw return, outward to SIN and return from MNL and it was some £200 cheaper if I booked the outward with AF and routed via CDG that on KL direct AMS/SIN ... You think KL are bad to Asia ... You ain't seen nothing, AF are even worse!

But in those days there was no other choice from CWL (that I could get to from my then home in 10 minutes on a bus), KLM can be pricey but the fare then was quite reasonable and wouldn't have made it worth my while to route from LHR or BHX or wherever.

When I finally emigrated six years ago I flew Cathay LHR/HKG/CEB, I love Cathay :)

I agree with you re Cathay Harry. I make a point of avoiding flag carriers such as Air France plus all the major US airlines.

To get from Rhoose to your home means you must have lived in Barry or Llantwit.

My house was 4 doors away from Tesco's in Barry, just a walk across the road and a bus stop to the airport.

I've had many a pint in the Highwayman after parking my aircraft near the old Cambrian hangar. I lived in Flemingston and learnt to fly at Rhoose. Small world :-)

Cardiff is a decent sized airport compared to Norwich and I am glad the Welsh Government bought it back.

My passion was/is map reading, navigation etc. and of a Sunday we would do a crawl around the country lanes of the Vale with an ordnance survey map of PH's in hand :)

You must have had a few in here Harry.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...ONvV2S1CKDGjXd

I was a founder member of the Cardiff Wales Flying Club. We would fly down to Guernsey for the weekend and return Sunday evening followed by a few pints at the Blue.

I've cracked my bl00dy head on the ceilings in there a few times :)

.....only when the thatch isn't on fire.

I must say I am pleased the airport is back in public ownership.

CAA stats for November 2017 are out.

The airport saw 77,830 passengers through the airport up 8.1% on 2016. The rolling year was 1,456,934 up 9.1% on 2016. Atm's were 1096 down 5.2% on 2016 with the rolling year 16,959 up 7.1% on 2016.

Top 5 destinations for November 2017

1. Amsterdam 12,129

2. Edinburgh 8423

3. Dublin 7708

4. Tenerife South 7498

5. Alicante 5836

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Top 5 destinations by percentage growth

1. Belfast City +58%

2. Jersey +55%

3. Berlin TXL +52%

4. Paris CDG +37%

5. Anglesey +36%

TUI have added a weekly Antalya for summer 2018 from 21st May on Mondays. The flight will be with a non based carrier like the Friday Dalaman.

This is rumoured to be with SunExpress with a B737-800 to/from both AYT & DLM

Be nice to see a new airline at CWL. Don't think SunExpress have served CWL before.

I think they’ve done one summer previously a few years back but agree it’s nice to have a new airline on the boards. Also good to see the Turkish market taking back off again, so many Turkish airlines have operated through CWL, notably Onur Air, Sunways, Pegasus, SAGA Airlines and Freebird, so welcome back SunExpress

Qatar Airways have vacancies for Airport services agent, senior airport services agent, Airport services supervisor, Airport Services Manager and Airport services Duty officer. All are for Cardiff Airport and on their website.

That's funny ... So they need a Airport Services Manager to oversee an Airport Services Supervisor to oversee an Airport Services Duty Officer to oversee a Senior Airport Services Agent to oversee an Airport Services Agent and presumably all of these shall be overseeing the handling agent.

Ever heard of the saying 'Too many chiefs and not enough Indians"? ... And for how many flights each week?

It looks like to me that they want their own staff to be what the customer sees as their point of contact rather for check in, dispatch and complaints rather than Swissport staff.

As for the positions it doesn't say how many in each but the staffing will have to be spread out over the week as the flights are daily. As for the daily tasks that these jobs require I'll leave that to the experts to say what they have to do.

It's apparent that money is no object, all they would need to have their own airport representation would be a couple of Duty Officers to cover seven days a week overseeing the handling agent and dealing face to face with passenger enquiries.

Check-in opens, what, three hours before and everything should be wrapped up by one hour after departure ... Wow, these staff are going to be working some seriously long hours!

Much easier and cost effective to provide the handling agent with some Qatar uniforms, the agent appoints their own dedicated Qatar check-in staff, then besides a couple of their own staff Qatar don't need to worry about hiring and firing etc.

But then that's too simple for the M. East!

Of course money is no object. If it was Qatar would not be flying from Cardiff.

So you just assuming that because it's Wales that Qatar can't operate profitable flights? Ever thought that they may know what they are doing? I wonder if they had chosen somewhere else say Belfast if people would be as sceptical.

Qatar chose Cardiff because its a capital. The airline frequently boasts about flying to more capital cities than any other airline. Cardiff ticks that box and they'll probably eventually add Belfast for the same reason. Nothing to do with sound business.

Yet their CEO says the route has to be profitable to be maintained. That sounds like sound business to me.

Profitability is no just seats sold but includes any incentives given to operate the route. I wonder what they are.

On the subject of seat sales Cardiff all through the summer is showing a return fare to Doha 250 pounds less that BHX and MAN and all but the early Heathrow flight.

That is a big difference.

Cardiff is a new route so will be priced to attract new passengers from airlines like Emirates and Etihad and people from the South West. Coincidentally the difference between the Business Class fares on CWL and BHX isn't much.

As for incentives all airports will offer airlines incentives especially if they are new airlines or new routes or important to the airport. I expect CWL and Qatar are no different.

Just look at Cardiff's route network and the destinations within Europe that it fails to sustain. And then look at the lack of airline that see any business case for flying to Cardiff. Yet Qatar see a case for a daily widebody to Doha?! Laughable really. But of course money is no object here.

Have they announced it is to be a widebody?

Yes Harry Qatar announced it a few weeks ago and already discussed, daily B788.

The large Easyjet base at BRS and previous managerial incompetence is the reason for that. If you look at what the airport is doing with the growing Flybe base and routes, routes returning with TUI and TCX short and long haul. Vueling slowly growing and IB Express operating to the airport. Also Qatar gives CWL a product BRS doesn't have. The passenger numbers are growing as well. When the Welsh government took over in 2013 the yearly pax figure was 1,075,000 for 2017 it should be around 1.45 and for 2018 1.65. The terminal is being upgraded with departures expanded along with 2 new airbridges to be fitted as well. The airport is going in the right direction as is Wales as a country with our national identity getting stronger and Wales becoming more well known internationally and a more popular tourist destination. CWL as an airport and Wales as a country and Cardiff as a city are growing and Qatar will be part of that.

787 8 aircraft.

But there is a reason for the large easyJet base at BRS...

It was inherited of course from Go & when as part of their business plan back in the day Go were looking to establish a second base it was BRS on the list of potential candidates.

Unfortunately CWL was not...The rest is pretty much history.

Qatar Airways
 

My wife and I visit Australia each year for VFR and usually use Emirates.

However, CWL is our nearest MEB3 airport and we were (still are hopefully) intending to look at it as a serious option in 2018. We visit 'Down Under' in November each year.

Inexplicably (to us anyway) Qatar is showing no web booking availability for CWL after 26 October. The other Qatar UK airports have seen their booking window extended daily (by one day) through November and December to the point where they are now bookable until the end of this year.

A poster on another forum suggested he had seen a Qatar reply to a similar query from someone else stating that for the moment CWL flights for November and December need to be booked offline, presumably by telephone or via a travel agent.

We usually use a well-known long-haul travel agency for our flights to Oz but I like to peruse airline websites first to get an idea of the various options including price and timings.

Is this sort of thing common with Qatar? I've never used them.

I'm actually wondering if it's to do with the rugby Autumn internationals. The fixtures aren't out yet and Qatar may be waiting to liase with tour operators to schedule packages for the flights.

When I travelled to/from Asia each trip I checked schedules and fares with the various airlines and I always found with Qatar that to get anything like a decent fare I was going to need to take some 18 hours in Doha in one or both directions whereas hotel and (at the time) visa would be required whilst reducing the length of my holiday by a day or so, PDQ Doha connections were available but the fares were way too high.

Head off to Stockholm or Oslo to start your journey.. you can often get returns in J to Australia for £1400-£1600 on QR.

I’ve just left Oslo in Doha right now. We got J class for about 2k each plus a cheap flight from London. Well worth it. BA wanted about £5k each to syd.

Qatar Airways have released flights from November 2018 onwards.
Flights will be 5 weekly on Monday's, Tuesday's, Thursday's, Friday's and Sunday's.
Monday's and Friday's 07.30-12.10 DOH-CWL CWL-DOH 14.40-00.40
Tuesday's, Thursday's and Saturday's 01.05-05.45 DOH-CWL CWL-DOH 07.05-17.05