Not so sure SSH is a risk. Of the 16 times I have flown on the route with TUI, I sat about 10 times next to seat only pax

toledoashley

It still doesn't mean travel agents can't purchase flights as I've often seen Malta and Faro packages offered with Ryanair as the airline.

VickersVicount

I did say if or when and as for FR and EZY they both have bases at BRS and rely on the leakage of passengers from Wales to make BRS more profitable and EZY have repeatedly told cwl that they don't see a need to serve Cardiff. Wizz on the other hand don't have a BRS base to protect. As for Wizz expansion I'm sure I read that they want to base 50 aircraft in the UK and currently have 18.

An airline CEO once told me that he could sell out 6 aircraft (probably slightly exaggerating) at CWL during the Summer but nothing in the Winter. So if you are going to base aircraft at CWL, the number of aircraft is going to depend on what you can sell during the Winter.

I’m a bit surprised that nobody wants to do EDI, that has previously worked all year round.

By that logic TUI should only have 1 aircraft at CWL all year yet base 3 in the summer. But the winter will be the big challenge for Wizz.
As for EDI the only real option is loganair and they made it quite clear that they aren't interested in the route.

Eastern “could” also be an option for EDI too. I think it’s a good move for Wizz Air with just 1 aircraft initially and time will tell.....no reason why it will not work and down to the public to make it a success

Wizz will stay at Cardiff if flights are profitable enough for them to. There are certainly a large enough number of passengers in the catchment area. Not far off 2 million travel over the bridge to BRS each year to fly. The real question is if Wizz can capture enough of them/ generate enough new passengers at the right price. Nobody knows if that will be the case yet.
They do have a history of starting and cutting routes frequently - but that is always going to be the case when you have an airline expanding as rapidly as Wizz are. They do sell seats through travel agents on package holidays as well to the person who said they didn't.

fanrailuk Yes, the same was said about Vueling. The thing your flippant comment forgets is that they have spent *a lot* of money on marketing. That's got them passengers all right, but they've cut flights they used to operate and still carry fewer Welsh passengers to AGP/ PMI/ ALC than easyjet and Ryanair do from Bristol. When people in S. Wales think of a LCC, they think easyjet and Ryanair, not Vueling and that's just a fact. That's not to put Vueling down of course. They have done an excellent job cutting out a niche at Cardiff.

As for domestic routes, lets see what happens when the Covid mist thins (hopefully) over the summer. Wizz isn't going to be operating any domestic routes, but there are other possible carriers that I listed a few posts ago.

PDXCWL45

I don’t think it’s a matter that they “aren’t interested.”

From various articles it was one of the few that remained in the “viable but unserved” category along with the likes of EDI-MAN (albeit specifics about the lack of demand for onward connections making MAN very difficult to work in the future.) As for EDI-CWL I’d say it’ll certainly be a matter of waiting for markets to recover and analysing the rate and extent that happens over the course of the spring with a return to be made in hopefully in the future.

This is a reply from their social media team that i got back in September when they released summer 2021
"Right now we cannot see how we would be able to operate to Cardiff from anywhere in our network in a way that provides a schedule suitable for customers and financially viable for us as an airline,"
This reply seems to back up what the CEO himself said in an interview with Anna.aero and on a LinkedIn in post who also mentioned Easyjet adding extra flights at Bristol and in the interview said some airports were more helpful than others.

Maybe they will return in the future but I'd suggest they'd need more aircraft to do so and I can't see it being in 2021. Will be odd not seeing Edinburgh as a route from Cardiff.

Wizz will stay at Cardiff if the subsidies from the Welsh Government mean they can develop a hub. They'll be out in a flash if they cannot make money.

According to one article, I forget which one, there is no WG involvement. Its all on commercial terms with the airport.

To offer subsidies to enable the better heeled section of the population to enjoy two weeks in the sunshine would be a very poor use of public money. Leisure flying should never be subsidised by the taxpayer. On the other hand, we there to be the opportunity for the government to support a carrier willing to open up routes to business destinations, where the benefits may involve new jobs and investment in Wales there may be more merit to a subsidy. From my perspective however, air travel isn't "public transport" and should never get subsidies from public bodies using tax payer's money.

Probably a discussion to have when there is evidence of the use of tax payers money but there might be a couple of reasons, to create/maintain airport based employment, and to help improve the viability of the airport so that the those "global connectivity" flights can be operated.

A good valid reason for a subsidy or call it 'encouragement to use an underused facility'. Air transport is a form of public transport i.e. a form of transport to which the paying public have access.

In the broadest sense of the term yes, but then on that basis so could the cruise industry!

When people discuss public transport they tend to mean rail, trams and buses mainly but not exclusively used for day to day life and work. Aviation for leisure hardly falls into that category.

However as was said above currently we have no idea whether or not Wizz has been lured with Welsh tax payers money.

It has already been confirmed that no government funds have been used to attract the airline.

It's impossible to claim that Welsh Govt cash wasn't used, when the Welsh Govt owns 100% of Cardiff airport, would almost certainly bail out the airport if it was in serious debt, and will also receive 100% of any potential dividends should they be paid

Cardiff airport is the overwhelmingly dominant commercial airport in Wales, is the only airport with non-PSO flights and is a 100% state owned company. You can create all sorts of legal niceties on paper to tick boxes, but in practice it is an arm of the Transport section of the Welsh Govt

There's a big difference between subsidies and loans. Most of what has been publicly broadcast is CWL taking commercial loans from the WG, therefore being paid back.
The WG own the Airport. If they don't provide money in some way, CWL will not be able to recover.

With an election coming up it's hardly likely that the WG is going to splash the cash on attracting holiday routes to the airport due to political fallout and I also doubt that the airport company itself has any spare cash to splash as well I suspect that any deal has a lot of waived fees in it. The WG will no doubt make sure that the airport stays afloat but I don't see this government especially subsiding an airline like Wizz or any other airline with the exception of maybe Qatar Airways, KLM or a US route.

Yesterday British Airways G-BYGC BOAC livery was the BA 747 departure from Cardiff and most likely the last ever 747 departure from the airport. It flew to St Athan where it'll be preserved by eCube solutions.

Free landing, navigation, parking..........

That is an unwritten subsidy based upon the published tariff of charges. The airport may have it's own fund to financially support new routes or airlines. Wizz will be paying Cardiff airport nothing (or very little) for a pre-determined period. This in the hope that Wizz can develop a money making operation for their shareholders. Plus, sustaining jobs after the JRS.

I'd say pretty standard stuff for most airports especially small ones. The airport will earn its money off ancillary revenue from the footfall they bring through the airport.

Eastern Airways have taken Anglesey & Belfast City offsale for Jan & Feb.

Anglesey resumes 1st March 2021
Belfast City begins 12th March 2021

Looks like KLM won't be resuming flights until 28th March

I dont think they will start on that date. Its nice to see they put a date.When they do start i recon it will start off at 1 per day.

Well we'll have to wait and see. That is the start of summer and I believe it's down as 2 daily.

QR @ CWL
 

Rumours circulating on the socials and other sites that QR are to pull the plug on CWL (and BHX)...

Rumour only! As per the name of this forum. Don’t shoot the messenger :rolleyes:

Apparently they made some staff at Cardiff redundant and they were told the route won't be resuming but the flights are still onsale at the moment.

I’ve just been looking on Qatar’s website for their destinations in Europe but I couldn’t see Cardiff as a destination on their list. If someone can find it I apologise but I couldn’t see it

CWL is showing on the map on Qatar Airways website......just looked out of curiosity

fanrailuk

My Field Agents tell me the earliest QR will return is 2022 if at all . If this is correct very sad news indeed.

Expected tbh. Going to take a while for everything to recover and unlike Dubai Doha isn't a point to point route but more for onward connections especially for Australia and New Zealand.

While sad news, I think it is clear that very little long-haul travel is going to happen in 2021. The chances of Australia, NZ, Thailand, Malaysia (some of the main markets from CWL) opening their borders this year to Brits to travel relatively freely before the end of the year is small to none. Hardly surprising when you think in those circumstances.

Will be interesting to see whether Qatar cancel or just suspend the route.

Now that several neighbouring countries have lifted their sanctions against Qatar, it may be that Qatar Airways have more profitable places to use their fleet.

CWL was always going to be a marginal route for QR, but there could've been more economic desires between Wales and Qatar along with the route.
RedDragon makes a good point. The majority of people using the route were connecting to Australia & New Zealand, and there's no sign of that demand returning just yet.

I've done a comparison of passenger numbers vs BHX and EDI. Although EDI started at 5 weekly, with CWL at 7 weekly, CWL actually carried more passengers in it's first year. With the right frequency and continued growth I would've expected CWL to break the 100-110k passenger figure in 2020. Obviously Covid has decimated any potential to grow in the short term, or even make the route viable over the coming months.
If true, and it certainly appears that way, it makes sense for CWL to at least be suspended. A return, if at all, in 2022 makes sense.
Also lets not forget that QR operated to quite a few smaller demand and marginal Airports across the world. What we don't know is where CWL falls in comparison to other worldwide Airports. If anything the UK market is one that will likely recover quicker, with people craving to go on holiday and also travel the world to see family and friends that they've missed out on seeing in 2020 and even 2021, especially in Australia/NZ.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....8fc10629da.jpg

They launched Pattaya, Thessaloniki, Mykonos and Gothenburg around the same time as Cardiff and none are onsale as direct routes anymore.

But without the competition of EK going gangbusters barely 40 miles along the M8...

QR post Covid19
 

A direct quote from Akbar Al Baker at a CAPA Live event today;

”Qatar Airways will serve all the routes we had launched after the blockade and what we had launched before the COVID restrictions happened...”

Make of that what you will.

He is the definition of motor mouth....he proudly 'announced' that QR would be serving BHX in 2006....another decade later they finally did!

Fingers crossed he is talking factually this time, although I note he hasn't actually said WHEN any of these suspended routes might restart....personally I'd be surprised if either BHX or CWL start again in 2021.

I doubt you’ll see either again on the Medium term. Something like an A321LR would be better if they wanted these types of routes to work. Even EDI seat use was often pretty low on A35/78. If A380s and some 777s are being withdrawn then the domino effect means 787s needed on other routes.
But we’re often told that cargo on widebodies is what keeps these afloat (although that can easily be transferred elsewhere by road)