Yes there is potential for the future but the question of all questions are we going to make most of the potential or is it going to slip away.

Every time we recieve some positive news in regards to CWL it is overshadowed by worse news.

The good news for CWL Summer 2011 has been

Air Southwest CWL-NQY x 5 weekly
Helvetic CWL-ZRH x 4 weekly
Eastern Airways - Sunday service to NCL/ABZ

The Bad news for CWL Summer 2011 has been

Thomas Cook downgrade from A321 to A320
bmibaby to withdraw an aircraft monday-friday
CWL-ORK withdrawn
CWL-DUB now only 2 x Daily

Contributers were wishing that in 2011 we would start to see the turn in fortunes and negative figures would start to level off. However in my opinion this will continue to send us overall in negative figures towards 2012.

Reports are just coming through on the Wales Air Network that the BE585 EDI-CWL has arrived at CWL on an emergency.

source

Interesting post, Rachman, thank you for it. A few thoughts popped into my head reading it...

Forgive me, but it is. The market - however large that is for Cardiff - is finite, and other airlines and other airports want to take it. EasyJet are all over the Cardiff catchment because they want the revenue.

Not sure what you meant here. The only organisations that can provide air services are airlines, not airports, and we don't do that to provide a service, we do it to make money. Harsh perhaps but there you are, that's the fact of reality.

Congratulations, you seem to have more idea about the 'market scenario' than anyone else! :p

A statement not borne out by the passenger numbers. Growth in the low cost sector continues apace, as witnessed by the recent easyJet order.

They will if they can see a market opportunity. Simples. They won't be up for any challenge they don't need to take.

I really don't see any other options for Cardiff. It needs 'pile it high and sell it cheap' to get the market back from BHX and BRS...

TA

So many hopes but as ever Twin Aisle and Merchant Venturer must be regarded as the authority on this subject.

Forgive me if I state the obvious once again but it is so easy when you are close to get carried away with what we would love to see but a harsh reality exists.

No matter who flies what aircraft or if the runway has swarovski crystal landing lights EVERYTHING begins with the number of bottoms on seats you can extract from the surrounding catchment area and in the case of schedules what may come from the other direction. Will those bottoms yield enough to cover the extra operating costs and still add something to the balance sheet or is there somewhere better to do that.

Market research will only give you an educated guess at existing routes that can be developed or new ones stimulated. If we all knew when it was right or wrong wouldn't it be easy.

Until Cardiff can increase that reservoir of potential passengers there will be no major expansion, Were the economy to significantly change overnight or a million people move to Cardiff, perhaps, that though is just a pipe dream in the forseeable future.

Here is another pipe dream. how much better it would be if we could build a massive airport near the M5 with a monorail to Cardiff, Bristol and Exeter City and a station that has super fast trains to Truro, Plymouth Birmingham and all the local towns and turn the existing airports into energy farms to power the lot,

Until that day sorry Cardiff you will struggle along on what you have plus or minus the brave that will always give it a go, some routes to last some not.

I can recall the days when Air Kilroe started the CWL/MAN/CWL 18 seat Jetstream31 service, obviously many of the pax internationally connecting in MAN, it became a really successful route, where is such a route today? ..... Oh, it's been diverted to some military airfield on a north Wales island, tax payer subsidised at £65 per seat, because some politician happens to live beside that island airfield and have business commitments to attend in Cardiff!

Would anyone care to argue that government corruption is not playing a part here?

And then the tax payer money goes out to the Isle of Man who then redirect it to Germany! Would be funny if it wasn't true!

Well look on the bright side ..... it's not only CWL that go to Holyhead:

YouTube - Paddy Goes to Holyhead - Johnny went to the war

I wonder if 'Paddy' get a government subsidy to go there also? :)

I see the cab drivers at the airport have suspended a strike due to start on Sunday. Taxi drivers to take action (From Barry And District News)

Thanks to Groundhog for his kind comments, I am really flattered. I would say that most of what I type is just business common sense built over a very long time in this mad industry.... :}

In the words of Francis Urquhart..... :oh:

I'm quite enjoying watching the converts on here. Way back when, I was being regularly spat upon by the Rose Tinted Brigade as regards my critique of the NS link. The whole rest of the world seemed to think it was a great idea (with a few honourable exceptions!) These days it seems I have a chorus :)

TA

How do you know ZRH was 11th?
 

Rachman, you finally along with TA seem to be making sensible comments about the reality. Viability and profit is key to what will and won't prosper in the Welsh aviation sectors.

I am however wondering where the insight into KLM popularity re markets came from. Especially the point re ZRH being 11th.

Would you be kind enough to tell us what the source is for this and what the other 10 cities are?

Also were you talking in terms of money spent on tickets! passenger volumes or something else?

What i imagine is most important for Wales, is what percentage of the numbers on the klm flights come from overseas. Perhaps your source might know this data set too?

Groundhog,

The 'new airport' was a suggestion a few years back. It was to be called Severnside. If I remember correctly it was going to be built on the old steel works east of Newport on reclaimed land from the Severn.

The Gov slapped it down saying it wasnt needed unless both Cardiff and Bristol closed and moved operations there. It may have been if one closed or both, I can't remember now.

The developers wanted to create a south west 'hub' type airport like MAN.

Would have been amazing!

If you search BBC News you can read all about it.
:ok:

Thanks I remember that, what I had in mind was further south that would also cover Exeter, Plymouth and Newquay but it would never happen.

By the way I have a lovely business plan in my desk somewhere that was done to evaluate a North South Wales link a few years ago with a 19 seater and it was certainly a non starter without a subsidy at that time.

It appears Monarch are operating Funchal for one day this summer.

22 August MON5844 CWL-FNC
29 August MON5845 FNC-CWL

It's some good news...I guess. Lets hope more is to come :)

On behalf of Atlantic Holidays

This is the fourth 1 off 7 day holidays announced this year from Cardiff with the other three being the Newmarket ones announced before Christmas.

Here is the article related to the latest development

Cant see this being anything more than a couple of charters in the future, if that.
FNC had struggled for a while. Previously sold by Atlantic Holidays and operated by Astraeus split with LBA. Then Thomson started the route and sold seats to Atlantic Holidays.
Atlantics allocation gradually faded to quite poor figures, and didn't do too great for Thomson in the end when the route was pulled

Well if we could have a few of these one off charters to various destinations it will certainly make Cardiff airport busier.

Easpecially if they ok then we could have 3 or 4 to each destination per year.

I seen something on Twitter, via Cardiff Airport's own official feed about connecting in Dubai with Emirates. I'm unable to access the Emirates website at the moment so cant have a look for myself, but are Emirates really starting flights to Cardiff? That would be a major surprise!!

You can allready connect with Emirates from Cardiff as we are listed in their drop down menu.

This can be done on various airlines from Cardiff with the main option on the Emirates website

CWL-GLA then connect at GLA
CWL-AMS then connect at AMS

Allthough not allowing the option on the website i have seen passengers travelling on the Eastern Airways CWL-NCL with onwards to DXB.

Passenger figures Dec 10
 

December 2010 Figures

Domestic

Destination/2010/2009/Percentage Change
EDINBURGH/5191/10048/-48.3
GLASGOW/3124/3696/-15.4
JERSEY/1271/915/38.9
NEWCASTLE/524/1630/-67.8
ANGLESEY (VALLEY)/332/699/-52.5
BELFAST CITY/2757/1841/49.7
BELFAST INTERNATIONAL/1969/3572/-44.9


International

INNSBRUCK/430/382/12.6
BRIDGETOWN/1298/277/368.6
PAPHOS/523/515/1.6
SHARM EL SHEIKH/3179/3245/-2.0
ENONTEKIO/376/901/-58.3 Santa Flight
KITTILA/318/0/0.0 Santa Flight
ROVANIEMI/376/0/0.0 Santa Flight
CHAMBERY/151/108/39.8
PARIS /2511/2770/-9.4
MUNICH/1551/0/0.0
CORK/44/1158/-96.2
DUBLIN/4570/5343/-14.5
AMSTERDAM/8212/9119/-9.9
FARO/361/1061/-66.0
ALICANTE/4517/5402/-16.4
MALAGA/2183/3647/-40.1
ARRECIFE/2959/2831/4.5
FUERTEVENTURA/274/480/-42.9
LAS PALMAS/1929/1693/13.9
TENERIFE /6619 /4968/33.2
GENEVA/425/551/-22.9
MONASTIR/361/394/-8.4

Some of the percentage drops are erratic due to time of year and the difference of one flight can mean a large percentage change.

Total Passengers:

2010/2009/Total Difference/Percentage Change

58987/69182/-10195/-14.7

Compared with:


JANUARY/-16,362/-20.5%
FEBRUARY/-19,420/-22%
MARCH/-17,413/-15.7%
APRIL/-39,246/-33.9%
MAY/-26,619/-15.8%
JUNE/-24,337/-13.1%
JULY/-18,924/-10.4%
AUGUST/-16,257/-8.4%
SEPT/ -19,242/ -10.6%
OCT/ -12,947/ -8.4%
NOV/-6343/-8.01%
DEC/-10,195/-14.7

Passenger figures whole 2010
 

PASSENGER FIGURES FOR 2010

Destination/2010/2009/Percentage Change

AMSTERDAM/125118/135259/-7.5
EDINBURGH/111456/161001/-30.8
ALICANTE/92444/108891/-15.1
PALMA/87764/110339/-20.5
MALAGA/79177/115664/-31.5
DUBLIN/69660/64716/7.6
DALAMAN/65251/52587/24.1
TENERIFE/59431/61536/-3.4
GLASGOW/52400/56429/-7.1
FARO/45440/61625/-26.3
BELFAST CITY/41539/32754/26.8
IBIZA/34731/7290/-6.9
SHARM EL SHEIKH/34615/25089/38.0
ARRECIFE/34516/40362 /-14.5
PARIS/34308/39807/-13.8
PAPHOS/25754/25944/ -1.0
BODRUM/24670/28709/-14.1
MONISTIR/23950/2058/1063.8
LAS PALMAS/23430/30878/-24.1
JERSEY/22164/25058/-11.5
NEWCASTLE/21402/30436/-29.7
MURCIA/20551/22296/-7.8
ANTALYA/19391/10781/79.9
RHODES/19224/18141/6.0
MAHON/18994/25956/-26.8
CORK/18591/16126/15.3
LARNACA/18062/22169/-18.5
HERAKLION/17494/17799/-1.7
ZAKINTHOS/17155/20729/-17.2
FUERTEVENTURA/16995/20895/-18.7
REUS/14720/16076/-8.4
BURGAS/12564/11474/9.5
CORFU/11299/9533/18.5
KEFALLINIA/9548/9812/-2.7
KOS/9165/7443/23.1
ANGLESEY /7815/11846 /-34.0
BELFAST INTERNATIONAL/7676/49806/-84.6
GENEVA/6064/9738/-37.7
MALTA/5243/7025/-25.4
CHAMBERY/4476/4183/7.0
INNSBRUCK/4123/6643/-37.9
MUNICH/2913/0/N/A
LA ROMANA/1480/2183/-32.2
ABERDEEN/459/6937/-93.4

Some nice figures here considering how bad this year has been. Good climbers include Antalya, Monistir, Sharm El Sheikh, Kos and Belfast City.

Along with the good comes the bad with some nasty drops including Edinburgh, Faro, Palma, Malaga, Newcastle, Mahon, Anglesey.

I hope these drops reduce in number for 2011 but with WWs ridiculous reduction and TCXs aircraft reduction this will be a challenge.