Swansea

[Letsflycwl]

Posted in the Travel Weekly that Swansea Airport is going to be developed.....that would be good news for the sporting events notably the football and rugby......where it could see Swansea City Football Club, the Ospreys and Scarlets all using SWS instead of CWL.....interesting times ahead

The Travel Weekly entry reporting this:

The owner of the largest independent agency in Wales is bidding to open up Swansea airport to regional flights.

Martin Morgan, owner of 20-branch The Travel House, has launched a study into the feasibility of developing the terminal and said it was “looking promising”.

Morgan, who is also a director and majority shareholder of Swansea City Football Club, is pulling together a consortium of local organisations, including the university, council, businesses and sports clubs, to support his plans.

He said the group would be “up and running within a few months”.

Speaking exclusively to Travel Weekly, Morgan said: “Swansea is the UK’s 25th-largest city. The airport has 300 acres of land, which could be developed. And it has a 1,472-metre runway that could take regional aircraft, yet it doesn’t have any regional flights.

“Any aircraft that flies into London City could fly into Swansea. So we will be approaching the likes of Flybe, for example, which has some smaller aircraft.”

Morgan added: “Norwich, Exeter and Hull all have a regional airport and they are of a similar size to Swansea, so why shouldn’t Swansea have one?”

He said opening up Swansea airport would appeal to sports teams coming to play Premier League team Swansea City FC, and rugby union sides Ospreys and Scarlets.

“Visiting teams have to fly into Cardiff and then it’s more than an hour’s drive to Swansea,” he said.

[CSman]

Ah the memories, A good day out CWL JSY Swansea JSY CWL with a DC-3,loverly way to spend a Saturday In the Glamorgan Flying Club By teatime couple of Ales Then home in time for supper

[TCAS FAN]

Haven't we been there before? The (previous?) owner, aka Air Wales, ended up almost bankrupt because of an attempt to do the same.

Having spent millions trying to upgrade Swansea, installing an ILS that was never used operationally, it all fell apart, both Air Wales and Swansea Airport. With Cardiff just down the M4 it will never work.

Speaking from personal experience some serious civil engineering work needs to be done on the main runway, including displacement of the 22 threshold to avoid high ground in the undershoot, which may then make the landing distance with a wet runway unviable for anything bigger than about an ATR 42. The add the cost of a new Tower farther from the runway to clear the transitional obstacle limitation surface for a precision runway. Then start looking at all new ATC equipment and the cost of establishing an ATC Unit............someone is going to have very deep pockets with little chance of a return on their investment in their lifetime.

[Letsflycwl]

Well we will just have to wait and see what goes ahead......

I used to fly LCY-CWL with Air Wales which then went onto SWS and the loads were always more for SWS than CWL, sometimes as high as 30 with 18 for CWL.....so the market is there for "selected specific" routes

[supermarine]

Mr Morgan ought to be keeping a wary eye on his Travel House business rather than this nonsense. A fifteen minute difference in travel time from Rhoose or Fairwood is not going to fill this decrepit runway with shiny tin flying machines.

[AirGuru]

Couldn't have summed it up any better myself. Some serious Civils needs to occur here before anything can even operate to the extent of his ambitions ! With CWL down the road too this makes it even more unviable

[01475]

I worry that he's said everything that needs said about his plans in the mention of London City Airport, which despite being located where Swansea isn't did not have a smooth start to life!

[xtypeman]

It is a complete non starter as Mr Morgan knows. It was his ownership of the airport that installed the ILS. The major problem is that when installed it was viewed as a new instillation and required full runway lighting including feed in lights. One huge problem is that to put the lights in requires building on a) common land not owned by the airport, b) the site is an SSSi.

[Letsflycwl]

I'm sure he is aware of all the risks....I pretty much doubt he would just throw away the money for no apparent reason.

It's not as if it is going to be made into Heathrow Part 2 and I would only imagine selected scheduled flights as per the days of Air Wales....seems LCY or any of the London airports is popular with the locals. J41 to ATR size aircraft. We always had good passenger loads when Air Wales operated SWS-CWL-LCY, majority originating at SWS over CWL. He knows what he is doing and I say good luck all round.

Also as he has stated, if invested into then this would be beneficial for the football and rugby teams both for home and away matches.

[davidjohnson6]

There are plenty of middle aged wealthy men who decide to burn a lot of their wealth by buying a football club. Perhaps owning an airport with scheduled passenger flights is the latest fashion ?

[Letsflycwl]

Well the airport has been there since the years so maybe a bit of TLC will prove everyone wrong.

Good luck I say to them and would certainly use a SWS-CWL-LCY service again if it ever happens

[Silvertop]

"TLC"!!!! What are you on? Major as in MAJOR re-development required? Even I an ILS were installed, the amount of suplementary work required would cost many many millions!! How many profitable routes would be required to make this justifiable. Don't get me wrong Fairwood is very special to me ( learned to fly there),but this is not going to happen!

[EI-BUD]

Swansea does not have the population or the inbound demand to support an airport for scheduled services. The minute you open the door you need a raft of employees to cover fire station, ATC, baggage handling etc etc. This is before you even consider security staff and maintenance costs and very substantial initial investment... Nowadays to make an airport work you'd need circa 1million passengers to make the operation stack up and that presupposes the airlines will pay a going rate for using the facilities, which is not always the case.

Unless ocourse there is a huge government subsidy, which is in my can not be justified. Until recently Cardiff had been struggling and the last thing that is needed is another airport in the same neck of the woods.

[Helen49]

As they used to say about starting an airline.......'if you want to make a small fortune, you need to start with a large fortune!'

[supermarine]

whatever happened to Phileas Fogg ? He would have been all over this nonsense with his acerbic posts .

[Cymmon]

Phileas Fogg recently got married, so may have other concerns for the time being... ;-)

[Gault]

Sigh, year on year it seems to be hanging on by it's teeth, the last couple of years the cafe never opens, if you are lucky there is a burger van, but only if there is a parachuting going on.
They have one bloke doing the everything except Radio but inluding fire service

I don't know who owns the place but in the last decade they have let a major asset turn into a dump, perhaps whoever they are simply don't have the means to cover the now pressing and essential investment it needs to survive, such a shame as it's a fantastic area to fly around.

[LTNman]

I paid my first visit to Swansea Airport last week. I thought it had the feel of Lydd but on a smaller scale. Noted the ILS which apparently has never been used in anger.

The terminal looked semi abandoned as did the whole airport. Maybe 4 or 5 light aircraft parked up with only one movement for the hour I was there.

Not sure how the airport makes any money but by doing a google search the airport seems to attract the odd business jet movement.

Wasn’t the airport involved in the movement of livestock many years ago?

[macdo]

This isn't about aviation, it's about land. If the airport permanently closes it will go back to its pre-war status as common land. Since this is in an AONB and an SSSI, development chances will be nil. Keeping the the aviation side going is the only way that a hotel, conference centre, housing (?) etc. will ever happen.

[Heathrow Harry]

yeah - build a bunch of new offices , car parks, hotels etc etc and maybe some large "hangars"... then show it won't work and can I keep my buildings please??

Might even be worth having a small airline losing a bit of cash to keep the fiction up

[GROUNDHOG]

Swansea to Perranporth with a cheap little plane, now there is a low cost route to operate that a handful of people might actually use ( I would!)

Cheapest rail fare is £106 (£169 first class) and it takes over 6 hours!!

Around 4 hours to drive.

I have no idea what needs doing to get Swansea going again though:confused:

[TCAS FAN]

GROUNDHOG

"I have no idea what needs doing to get Swansea going again though."

My post #3 may give you an appreciation

[Heathrow Harry]

and unless you use it every day it won't make money... air taxi fine but for any schedule you have to have a regular flow of punters

even the busiest businessman is unlikely to fly a route more than once a week both ways....

[Anodyne]

Don't worry people, this is Wales - I'm sure there'll be a subsidy along any minute......

[PDXCWL45]

Not for Swansea! Lol

[GROUNDHOG]

Exactly your own point Harry as in 20!

If the raison d'etre is to keep a Hotel and other facilities going then it is perfectly feasible to run a small air business offering charter, ACMI and even a limited schedule without losing a fortune.

As an entity on its own of course is another story!

[jetstream7]

Part of a wider article, but a quote from the BBC this morning regarding Swansea Airport

"Swansea council has close links with the Chinese city of Wuhan with possible flights to China a longer-term plan "

I have a feeling it'll be a long wait before anyone hears "Last call for passengers to Fairwood Common" at Wuhan

There is some serious, realistic input from Stuart Cole, Professor of Transport at the University of South Wales within the article.
China links could aid regional airport bid for Swansea - BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-43913363)

[Silvertop]

For heaven's sake!:ugh:

[TCAS FAN]

"Swansea council has close links with the Chinese city of Wuhan with possible flights to China a longer-term plan "

I believe that there are two words missing, it should in fact read:

"Swansea council has close links with the Chinese city of Wuhan with possible flights from Cardiff to China a longer-term plan "

[LTNman]

News from last month that was missed here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-49592637

[Musket90]

Just checked Notams which confirms not licensed from 3rd September. It's valid until mid-November.

[TCAS FAN]

I believe that when RT took over the airport the agreement for its operation (specified by Swansea City Council) requires that at least one runway was to be maintained as a licensed runway.

[Slaine]

It's License was suspended last year, It looks like the dodgy property developer owner is getting closer to his desire to run it down and build houses on it
It's been an ongoing farce for more than a decade but the way planning is granted these days it seems almost inevitable it will be another casualty of heartless capitalist greed

[Asturias56]

" it seems almost inevitable it will be another casualty of heartless capitalist greed"

or keeping it open is what? Socialist dreams? nationalist vote buying?? lets face it - it's a dead duck and better used than left to moulder

[Slaine]

No, keeping it open would mean its somewhere for aircraft to fly from that's all.
Nothing to do with socialism, merely I happen to like flying more than I like seeing tiky taky houses going up to fill some rich gits pockets (the housing shortage is a myth, there are plenty of them but the greedy bastages want too much rent money for them its a western disease)

[GROUNDHOG]

If referring to RT then your outrageous comment demonstrates you must have had a personal relationship juxtaposed to mine. My personal dealings with the gentleman albeit many years ago were with a man of integrity, honesty and loyalty and my regard will always be high for his professionalism although we may have disagreed about the direction of his airline.

With regard to Swansea Airport, of course it would be great to see it thrive as it was intended but Cardiff is just down the road, it is located in an area of outstanding natural beauty and of special scientific interest with a bog at the end of the runway. Not really a recipe for success.

Planning for vast housing estates, no idea, unlikely surely?

Maybe Boris will make Swansea a freeport then things might take off big time.

[AirportPlanner1]

Probably just as well the Swansea-Wuhan route stalled

[Slaine]

Hard to take this seriously, but I'll have a punt...

Yes its in a beautifull area one of the reasons it could be made to work pleasure flights around the Gower would go down well, but it needs someone who actually wants it to work in charge something distinctly lacking for the past decades.
As for the bog at the end of the runway now you are just being silly, how many successfull aerodromes have some obstacle on the approach?, i'll answer:most

Its obviously a very very long time since you had any real life experience of the situation in Swansea or aerodrome management in general

[VickersVicount]

GROUNDHOG

The airport of the City? Hard to imagine either.

[LTNman]

Is Swansea a licensed airport again after it closed as a licensed airport on September 21st?

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/reason-swansea-airport-been-closed-21724197

i visited the airport yesterday and saw there were 3 light aircraft parked on the ramp but there was no activity at the airport apart from Covid testing.. The tower seemed to be closed but maybe the controller was out of sight.

The old terminal is still accessible with seating but the cafe was closed. Actually I have never seen the cafe opened over the last few years. The peeling walls have fascinating photos of the airport taken in the war.

The airport seems to be on its last legs but I have been thinking this for years yet it carries on. Hard to imagine scheduled services once operating from here. I might well be wrong but from the top of my head I think Dan-air, maybe BMA and Morton Air Services have operated into here. In more recent years Air Wales also run scheduled services.

[zoomboy]

Go back in time, the biggest airliners to operate into Fairwood Common were Viscounts, probably to Jersey. I seem to remember Cambrian operated the 700 series circa 1970, but not the 806 because the props were too long for the undulating main runway.

[SWBKCB]

It's been over 15 years since Air Wales stopped services, so don't think Swansea is still an airport in the context of this forum

[pulse1]

I would love to see Swansea thriving as an airport as it has many memories for me over many years. As a kid in the late 40's we used to spend our family holidays on the Gower coast and the main access road used to cross the end of one of the runways of Fairwood Common as it was known then. I am pretty sure that there were very few, if any, aircraft there. During one of our holidays they actually had a motor race there and many of the current driver aces were there. In fact, Stirling Moss had what could have been a very serious accident in a Formula 500 car when someone drove over the top of him and took his helmet off. (in fact I saw Stirling race 3 times over the years and he crashed each time, including his last one at Goodwood)

My next memory was probably mid 50's when, as an ATC cadet, I I flew from there in an Anson. I was fortunate to sit in the righthand front seat and had a good view of the potholes on the runway as we landed. In the late 60's i was an ATC gliding instructor at Old Sarum and, on yet another holiday in the Gower, I managed to get a glider flight in a Mk3 at the local ATC school there.

In the late 90's I had renewed my PPL and was intending to fly to Swansea to renew my friendship with my old school chum Marcus Edwards. He was then the Chiel Pilot of DeHaviland Aviation (?) and he tried to persuade me to take lessons in a Vampire T11. Sadly he died before I could make it. I have flown in there several time since and usually enjoyed my nostalgic visits.

[Musket90]

LTNman - Swansea is open Wednesday to Sunday but closed Monday and Tuesday.