Must say "good on yer, Tim" for the FFB blog honesty (although it's surprising that we can now talk about this project on PPrune - any connection with the Admins, Tim?)

As I posted a while ago, any new routes ... and I guess that includes new airlines ... would be madness right now. For the same reason that you might consider taking out a second mortgage on your home to pay off your credit cards; ie don't be silly.

One hopes a new airline might be created for our 3 million Welsh population (and our 5 million Welsh expats, taken together making the much vaunted Bristol "catchment" look a bit questionable), with the prospect of opening other bases to deliver a famous new and contemporary Welsh brand along the lines of Moneysupermarket.com.

CAA stats support the concept (at least up to the end of my tenure at CWL but things have changed in the last few months) of a regional niche lo-co. But some Saudi sheikh has to help us out as there is no Welsh invester with the capacity to set up such an enterprise and Barcelona/The Owner/The Mexican Boss has no imperative nor self-interest to make it easy ... I sense the mantra is next financial year cost-cutting and revenue enhancement, not short/medium/long term investment for future growth.

Whether our best prospects are an aggressive Flybe, home carrier BMIbaby, eventually creative FFB, an ambitious Aer Arann with UK-wide aspirations or - and we really should discuss these in this space - a shortlist of a privatised Aurigny, well-funded Manx or a Jet2 released from its regional obsession, is the kind of thing PPrune alone can speculate on. You're not going to get any help from Spencer Birns, even under his forum alias!

Meanwhile, you can try to organise a valuable incoming market by Googling and joining Global Wales.;)

Aer Arann
 

Looks like Aer Arann are reducing flights after all :-

Airline cuts flights - WalesOnline

Poor scheduling at CWL
 

Why, oh why, can't this be sorted?:ugh:
If you come in from Anglesey, will you get a full days business in Cardiff?
Or Edi, Cdg etc, etc....
No, we'll all land at 10am, miss trains, taxis, buses.
Going to/from Ams? don't bother, go to Brs.
International...?
Regional...?
Customers are telling you where/ what they want.
Lets listen......

this town, ain't nothing but a ghost-town:confused:

ams - how come brs is better? (provided KL dont canx flight of course!)

It just is! Sorry! ;)

Birdscarer
 

Birdscarer, Why do you bother commenting in the CWL forum? You have nothing decent to write and are clearly biased towards BRS. Please keep your comments limited to constructive criticism. CWL is not the best airport and neither is BRS by no stretch of the imagination but they both serve a purpose and their catchment areas well, with obvious room for improvements.

Well said bcn_boy! :ok:

wHO ARE FFB:ugh:

BCN Boy. Clearly I am biased towards BRS but I also like to comment on remarks that are valid on this thread too, as well as join in on some light hearted banter and rivallry. You have no right to say where I can, and cannot, post and I will continue to contribute to the CWL community thread. Like wise with any other thread I want to join.

Was your contribution by saying that any more constructive....nope!
:=

In the same token (and before this becomes some sort of slanging match), might I suggest that if you don't like me talking about BRS on CWL, there is no further mention about what BRS has / doesn't have from any other contributor unless directly related to CWL? For example, "we recieved a diverted Easyjet from BRS today". I also recommend that a sense of humour is not applied when posting! :ok:

I have to make some comments on the above post.

EDI you will have enough time for a full days work at CWL with first inbound at 08:20 and last departure just 19:40 (Flybe)
You could also have a full day at EDI if you choose to fly BmiBaby.

NCL has an ideal scheduling for those wishing to complete a days work at CWL with arrival of 08:05 at CWL and Departure of 18:45 from CWL.

I doubt very much you could receive a full days work at CWL if you are travelling from GLA, DUB, CDG, AMS These are due to Airline Scheduling and nothing else. I doubt very much CWL can be fussy and refusing airlines times as they haven't got a lot of airlines knocking on the door.

VLY has a different issue where it has airfield operation restrictions that only allows it to open at certain times as it is the RAF that operate the control tower. However i believe that this route could allow for half a day at CWL and not a full day.

Main reason for KLM's CWL-AMS is for feeder traffic to it's hub and therefore the timings would reflect most suitable to accomodate this.

CWL does not have enough home based aircraft to allow for ideal business travel too or from key business destinations and the majority of it's routes are catered for Leisure passengers rather than business. On the other hand the last 2 years have seen a growth of business destinations such as extra rotations to NCL, EDI, GLA addition of CDG and BHD. It is better than what it was and unless airlines want to operate the routes were not going to get them.

Our main hope at CWL is for a Flybe Base which may be able to improve the times of CDG and GLA.

Scheduling/cancellations
 

Agreed, there are the earlier flights, I'm just quoting paxs. comments.
Pax are fed up getting up at 03.00am, for a AMS flight, to turn up and have to go home for 4 hours because the flight was canx. 2, yes 2 weeks ago! Therefore missing their Schipol connections.
Other pax have fresh produce to deliver in South Wales/ West Wales via lorry/ferry connections, with a limited shelf life.
These pax are off to BRS in future!
5 crown airport?
6 planes tech recently?

MON7648Dalaman17:25Check In at 1425
Any reason?

I have a feeling that it is not just Cardiff suffering these problems and i'm guessing people going over the bridge may just be the problem. If they decided to use their own airport then more services would become available.

The only reason an aircraft would be cancelled for passengers getting up at 4am is if the aircraft has gone tech on the stand as it would have stayed overnight at Cardiff. The implication of this is that there are no qualified Fokker engineers at Cardiff and therefore engineers are required to either come from Birmingham by road or from Amsterdam on the KL1059.

With the fleet renewal starting soon i am sure that these issues will become less frequent, but if the local passengers do not support the service then it will dissapear.

Monarch - Dalaman
 

Monarchs new base of course!!
Ok wishfull thinking....

Thomas Cook have chartered Monarch for a few flights this week for half term.
Departures today to ACE/DLM and LPA on Monday, all ops on 757's

Is it me or has CWL lost it's only Cargo operator? I haven't seen a TNT aircraft in a while.

TNT...
 

TNT left early summer... believe they did a relocation excercise but don't know where. BHX perhaps ???

I think the relocation excersie was at EMA but obviously they found EMA better than CWL. I'm guessing thats a major loss to the airport, i doubt theres any chance of a replacement.

We often send goods through TNT at work, and now they all travel by road up to East Midlands before flying onto TNT's hub at Liege.

Doesn't make much difference, they're still guaranteed next day delivery anywhere in Europe. The packages often get up to East Midlands before 11pm and they're in Liege by 1am allowing them to be on-forwarded.

I'm sure the service offered by TNT will not affect the customer but as they were the only cargo operator our of Cardiff i'm sure it will be a blow to the airport and i suppose quite substantial amount of loss in revenue for the handling agents.

Cargo at CWL
 

Theres always activity around the cargo sheds.
Seen Saints lorries and Raven Express lorries loading/unloading.
Are there other cargo planes etc. operating?