Flew the other week from VLY

The crew is currently covered by NCL based

the operate
MME-CWL-VLY-CWL (night stop)
CWL-VLY-CWL-MME

makes sense to get the own based staff to reduce on overnight hotel costs

I'm pretty sure a house in Rhoose or Barry comes as part of the deal. It always used to when previous Airlines had the contract.
If it's currently crewed by NCL crew theres the additional cost of getting the crew from NCL to MME. With the current expansion I would think they would want to try and recruit local crew in MME and utilise them from MME only without night stops.

It does only appear to be Cabin Crew advertised, not Pilots. Although I do have a feeling there might be more to this.

They won't be trying to compete with Bristol or Birmingham that would be pointless. Obviously depending on the routes any operation will be to try and cater for the people who want to fly from Cardiff and aren't necessarily price sensitive.
Another factor people may not be considering is that Eastern may well be readying itself as a replacement for Flybe if the worse happens. That would be easier if a base was already there I'd have thought.

its not necessarily about competing with BRS or BHX but if the cost of the flights to say PMI is £300 from CWL but only £100 from BRS people will fly from there.

But Eastern wouldn't be doing a flight like PMI from Cardiff. I'd imagine that it would be more city routes.

Agree here, IF and it’s IF Eastern did then I’d imagine it would be the city routes that BE used to do - MXP, FCO, MUC etc.

that was an example *insert any city route that FR / EZY fly to from BRS*

But Flybe, quite successfully, did FAO. As much as it would be great to have city break destinations, it's the holiday routes that make money. Italy may do well supported by tour operators, but Germany isn't a great performer from CWL.
Also peak season end of July Vueling are charging £250pp return. MME-ALC is starting £240 return peak season. Low cost airlines arent always low fare.

But to be honest you could say that about most routes from Cardiff that no airline could match Ryanair and Eastern so why bother?

MXP for sure, then FCO and VRN and possibly VCE too, more or less the routes left behind by BE. FAO was always a good one for BE too.

But this is all just “what if”.....nothing set in stone and all we know are that Eastern are advertising for CWL cabin crew.....it may even just be for VLY !!

Loganair started their new Glasgow service on Thursday! Nice to see a new airline at the airport!
https://www.cardiffairport.com/news/2020/02/28/loganair-flights-to-glasgow-take-off-from-cardiff/

Cardiff Airport could get extra £6.8m loan from Welsh Government
https://t.co/66qCVrNlaW

People are prepared to pay a small premium to use CWL rather than trudge over the bridge and having the pleasure of getting stuck in traffic using the Brynglas Tunnel ( sorry pet hate)
I travel approx eight return trips a year and use BRS when I do not have the choice.

Another Embraer operator would be a great option but I feel Easyjet and Ryanair are both missing a trick as they would be able to totally corner the market in the South West/ West part of the UK if one of them created a small base from CWL. I don't see this happening with Ryanair as they have aircraft shortages with the ongoing Boeing fiasco!

So, am I reading this right - they bought the airport for £52m, loaned them £38m, then a further extension of £21.2m, now a further £6.8m. This after making losses of £18.5m last year - nearly three times more (i.e. well over £6m) than the previous year. And this is on commercial terms?

Interesting evidence today from Cardiff Airport to the Senedd Public Accounts committee concerning the loan and the airport operation in general and what costs they have to cover in the future.
https://www.senedd.tv/Meeting/Archiv...autostart=True

And yes all loans to Cardiff airport are on commercial terms.

With all the BE news and comments/rumours going round that they are scheduled to cease operations tonight, what next for CWL ?

Don’t get me wrong I hope in no way that BE do not fold but should this be the worst case scenario who could/would step in to fill the void? Being the main scheduled CWL it’ll cause a lot of concern or worry all round.

ABZ: Eastern will take over under T3
VLY: Eastern will take over under T3
BHD: ?
CMF: ?
ORK: Are Lingus Regional?
DUB: Aer Lingus Regional? Ryanair?
EDI: Loganair (hopefully)
GVA: ?
JER: Blue Islands?
CDG: Air France Hop?
MME: Eastern will take over under T3

Easterns routes will remain. As for the rest CWL will be lucky to keep Edinburgh but the others will be lost and no doubt many will take years to recover but I do hope I'm wrong.
On a personal note I'm genuinely gutted that Flybe have gone. I'm flown with them for a couple of years now and enjoyed every flight. They'll be sorely missed by passengers like me.

Hopefully DUB, EDI & CDG will remain as priorities

I wonder if Eastern CWL recruitment was in preparation for the BE news/situation?

Could Eastern stand on and cover the other BE routes from CWL ?

I can’t honestly see EI Regional taking over the Cork route. They’ve no easy aircraft availability (although Stobart do have wet leased aircraft with FlyBe). Biggest factor though is that it will largely drive up yield on Cork-Bristol, with a small bit of leakage to Cardiff-Dublin and Sail/Rail.