Let others answer but from the operators quoted CWL traffic would all appear "outbound"...Apart from the massive drain on the exchequer with holidaymakers spending abroad is there any actually enrichment to Wales itself or is it just very expensive prestige?.

The Prestwick of Wales?

southside bobby

The airport still creates jobs at the airport and around it and 20% of it's traffic in 2019 was inbound from abroad.
So do you think that the Welsh government should let Cardiff Airport go bankrupt?

https://www.key.aero/article/wizz-ai...0E2uglNsOggBR8

"Bishops Stortford"
"Cheshire"

For people who have no vote and pay no taxes here, it's very kind of you to take the overwhelming levels of concern in the governance of our country gents.

As always, so very grateful to the people of England for telling us how to run our own affairs.

Can we get back to aviation please?

For example, key aero have an incredibly imaginative article on a "4-aircraft flypast over Newport, Cardiff and Swansea" tomorrow...

Unfortunately I can't yet post a link but it's the first thing on their page. Makes for an interesting bit of creative writing.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were some heading to Saints for scrap as they take on more Neos, and the blogger responsible for the article has gotten somewhat excited. Or we may actually be getting the Wizzair display team...

BHX5DME

Could be quite the impressive show - the weather is looking promising for such a spectacle!

The article also mentions a maintenance operation starting.
Gutted I'll miss the fly past!

Considering Wizz is new to CWL, you’d have thought this would be the Airport Website advertising this.....seems like no one is bothered with updating this as it was last done on 3rd December !! (Checked at 17:30 05/03/2021).

This is quite an impressive thing Wizz are doing but it’s not being shared by CWL Management. Wakey Wakey & do some advertising to ensure people are aware of Wizz and their network.

Or Wizz Air's own website - or anywhere else!

Letsflycwl

Promoting a flypast would be a stupid thing to do really. There will no doubt be a load of rule breaker, nevermind if the airport advertised it themselves!

I know its been mentioned before but what date is the BHD flights supposed to start?

As far as flypasts go the Wizz one seems to have been a shambles, the flightpath of G-WUKL as seen on FR24 seems to have summed it up, I assume its weather issues

Indeed far from a maintenance operation the a/c are all for interim storage.

STN Ramp Rat

Seems like it was a success; all 4 in tandem over Swansea, Newport and then Cardiff.

Plenty of clear pictures on social media of them.

Maybe you spoke too soon...

I am a bit "DDSM" (don't do social media) so haven't seen anything. They never really got very low, but I am glad it worked out for them

They split at the start going between Swansea, Valleys and Barry with a few circles around CWL. Then all came back in to formation and flew around the Valleys and Newport, over Cardiff and back to Barry. There were a few other splits covering Swansea, Port Talbot, Valleys and Bridgend.
The height seemed to vary between 3000 and 7000ft depending on where they were. There seems to have been a huge uptake in photos posted on social media, not just by enthusiastic. Several media platforms covered it after CWL announced it.

Had it not been for lockdown restrictions, with the weather as it is, this could've been much bigger but overall still managed to capture people's attention.

Overall a pretty good PR stunt, because let's face it thats all it is. There's no new hangar or large scale maintenance being done. If anything it sounds like storage and the new maintenance contractor will be looking after them during storage. Its hardly a BAMC operation but good news all the same and some much needed parking revenue for CWL.

Thats assuming they are paying for parking - with the airports recent windfall from the people of Wales, they might give this to them as a welcome bonus haha - might be the reason Wizz now using CWL for storage and to the best of my knowledge haven’t at any other time during the pandemic.

That is very true and will build on the relationship. Will be interesting to see how long the aircraft stay.

STN Ramp Rat

The aircraft flew over most of southern Wales hence the flight paths.
It's had a good response on twitter.

caaardiff

So, the "Wales here we come" maneuver was half of their UK fleet being ferried for storage which they somehow failed to mention. I guess the airport will not have any significant revenue from this. Last year their fleet was stored in DSA for free. Don't think they would use another place now unless the conditions are the same.

How to gain maximum press exposure for minimal cost. Job done.

Or the sad reality hidden behind a PR spin, it depends on the angle you look at it. At least they could have done a proper low level fly-by somewhere (like in BUD) to have good pictures/video.

I would disagree. They saw a PR opportunity and took it. The whole point of it was to get people involved with their own photos. Get people talking and get the relatively unknown name in South Wales out there, all facilitated by a few aircraft on ferry flights.
The CWL Facebook post before the event saw over 500 likes, 200 comments and 98 shares. The post after the event saw 1000 likes, 645 comments and 113 shares.
Over 200 shares on social media to friends, family, colleagues just on Facebook. Throw in Twitter and Instagram, as well as Wizz own social media platforms, other media and reporting outlets and you've turned what was going to be another quiet lockdown sunny day into a huge advert making people aware of the Wizz brand, all from ferry flights that were going to happen anyway.

Imagine how much more interest it would've had if we weren't in lockdown and it was advertised with a big hype well in advance.

They probably wouldn't have done it in busier air space out of lockdown

I agree with caaardiff, my neighbours enquired about the 4 ship that overflow our village. None of them had heard of WizzAir, so for the cost of an enhanced ferry flight they have now got 2 households with 5 adult children plus partners aware of the new operation at Cardiff.

Welsh Dan I find your comments of People of England etc inappropriate and totally unnecessary. No doubt if the Welsh Government could extract even more funds from the UK government they would gladly accept it and rightly so. Therefore UK citizens have a right to comment on the subject matter. Before you add London to your list of England People interfering I live in South Wales and pay my taxes to Mr Drakeford and his cohorts.

The point CWL 123 makes about the Welsh Government, is a very good one, not allowing the airport to fail is absolutely correct. It is one of the boldest decisions, Drakeford's predecessor made. The infrastructure is vital to the economy of Wales and it's growth post Pandemic and Brexit. In the rest of the UK there are always alternatives but Cardiff is the only international airport in Wales and if it is going to compete on the global stage it needs one fact !

People can keep talking about subsidies, unlevel playing field etc but I have been around aviation long enough to remember all the British and European countries, even today supporting their own flag companies when it suits them.
Cardiff airport is strategically important to the country of Wales

This must be incredibly frustrating for the WG and Cardiff Airport after lobbying so hard for devolution of APD and for certain UK routes to become PSOs the government is finally willing to do something about domestic APD after Cardiffs domestic network was wiped out by the loss of Flybe and the pandemic.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.the...mestic-flights

Surely a lower level tax rate applied to the UK as a whole is by far the fairer system & the hopeful news to take out of this.

PDXCWL45

But the WG wanted it devolved so they can reduce it or remove it completely for CWL only.
That would be beneficial to CWL only, not all domestic carriers in the UK.
The UK government proposal is for a reduction throughout, so no airport is favoured and its a fair split.

""If we didn't take action the airport would have gone bust, it would have closed. We know there are roughly 2,400 aviation related jobs that would have been directly impacted by that and in total over 5,000 indirect jobs, supported by the airport."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-56350712

...and for balance the headline news of course...

Bought for £52M CWL is now valued at £15M & descibed as an "albatross" around the neck of the WG = taxpayers.

That description is by the Tories. In the end it comes down to the perception of the airport. Whether it's just a business or part of the transport infrastructure of Wales.

No matter who the opposition is surely it is their job to point out Government failings & shortcomings on behalf of taxpayers.

But mentioning the Tories it appears some of the latest Boris speak is being borrowed..."part of the transport infrastructure of"...in this case Wales.

https://www.conservatives.wales/news...lls-93-percent

To be honest I'm not convinced the Torie proposal in this article would do much good. USA and Manchester link? Surely the USA link would need to be funded to be profitable.... more taxpayer money.

Better transport links? With such low demand, hardly anyone would be using it.... more tax payer money.

The Tories are admitting in this article that different types of funding is needed, which will come from the tax payers.
Regardless of which political party owns it or you support, it doesn't get away from the fact that money is needed to turn it around.

Yes but the problem i see with the Welsh Tories is that the strategy they say they'd adopt is basically the same as the one that the airport has been implementing.

Ryanair Cardiff - Malta
 

FR have added MLA again from CWL

2 x weekly flights recommence 31 October 2021, operating Thursdays and Sundays

Additionally, VY have put their 3 x weekly ALC on sale for W21/22 (Tue, Thu, Sat)

excellent to read something positive about CWL again and good to see FR return with MLA too....MLA was always a popular CWL destination !!

I wonder if FR will give us something extra now that Wizz are here ??

Does anyone actually update the CWL webpage with this kind of news ? It’s been stagnant since the Wizz announcement on 3rd December .....surely this should be made public and advertised or mentioned if it means people through those doors when they eventually open.....

CWL social media/marketing is a joke. I don't know who runs it but professional social media ain't they're strong point really. Great news for CWL nevertheless!

Yeah I totally agree with you......the marketing on social media is totally shocking, they just don’t seem to want to advertise news unlike other airports that will bombard social media with new routes/destinations and airlines..... nothing on there since 3rd December 🤔

Airport tweets quite regular as well as posting on Facebook and Instagram. Malta returning isn't exactly massive press release news on it's own!
Good news that it's returning though!