Another airline pulls out of Cardiff Airport

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Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee

Wouldn't make any difference. Green issues would strengthen the vote of younger people. It is the future, regardless of whether you, or other Tories, like it or not.

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I'm not sure it is, unless the changes are managed well. Green parties generally struggling across Europe at the moment. The transition has to be socially sustainable to succeed, and I think a lot on the green-left, for that is what much of the green movement has morphed into, don't really get that.

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Originally Posted by JamesWales

I'm not sure it is, unless the changes are managed well. Green parties generally struggling across Europe at the moment. The transition has to be socially sustainable to succeed, and I think a lot on the green-left, for that is what much of the green movement has morphed into, don't really get that.

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Exactly, it's money and opportunities they want, not green status and more poverty.

[QUOTE=Mr Soul '68;5499783]

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Originally Posted by Rjk

If it wasn't for the Welsh government the airport would have closed down years ago.

They had actually turned it around but then Covid hit at the worst possible time and had a huge impact on the market.

there's a big chicken and egg effect in that you need passenger numbers to bring costs down attract airlines and you need flights to raise passenger numbers. Better carriers and more significant infrastructure spending will only be viable once passenger numbers are significantly raised, so its basically back to square one to try to gradually get them back up again.

If Ryan Air and EasyJet had the same flight destinations going from Cardiff as they do Bristol, they would have literally millions more passengers using Cardiff Airport per year. Something has to be done about encouraging the budget airlines to fly to more destinations in Europe from our airport. I go to Lanzarote three times a year and occasionally Beziers. Every time I fly it means he hassle of flying from Bristol. It really grips my p*ss that I have to do that.

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Ryanair and easyJet only operate out of Bristol not Cardiff because Bristol has so many more passengers, so costs are spread over a larger number of flights and they can offer cheaper flights.
if Cardiff became more cost effective than Bristol then they'd move at the drop of a hat, however I don't think that can just be achieved by lowering fees.
they need to grow the airport first to get a critical mass of passengers, then they will be able to entice these airlines back.
this is what they were doing before COVID struck.

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Originally Posted by North Cardiff Blue

Exactly, it's money and opportunities they want, not green status and more poverty.

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I think it's both, and that's fair enough. The problem is that's basically impossible. People have been sold a lie and choices have to be made if they want radical green changes.

It's why so many environmental activists are the classic middle class types; they don't need to worry about housing affordability and the heating bills so much.

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Originally Posted by SLUDGE FACTORY

Bristol Airport cannot expand any further apparently

Cardiff has one of the biggest runways in the UK and has plenty of room for expansion

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It doesn’t matter if the carrier doesn’t want to fly from here.

They’ll go to Exeter or Southampton for example

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Originally Posted by llan bluebird

This is where any linked-up thinking crumbles.

Scale baby, Scale. The fixed costs are amortised over fewer routes so the landing fee has to rise to cover the fixed costs. To reduce the landing fee's you need more flights, to get more flight you need to offer discounted rates to the airlines, at a loss to start. If you did decide to do that the airlines need to fill their planes. Geographically it knackered. Nothing south, few people live to the east of you, so its 20 miles north and west. West you have to travel through a bottleneck of biblical proportions and the alternative is non-existent public transport, which is an expensive train to Cardiff and a bus to the airport (same as most UK airports)

I remember Micheal O'Leary of Ryanair saying that CWL relied on the UK subsidy for keeping that very long runway in good condition as its the first transatlantic emergency landing strip

Its artificially been kept alive, it needed to move to severn junction region 20 years ago when that was first mooted

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The runway at 2392 metres is relatively short albeit still longer than Bristol’s.
I’d take anything O’Leary says with a pinch of salt , there is no subsidy to maintain the runway.

Agree with what you say about location which is Cardiff’s biggest weakness together with a catchment area which is economically in decline resulting in a local population having less propensity to fly.
Until that changes it will struggle to match the halcyon days of 2002-2004 where pax numbers were over 2m.

Bristol suffers the same poor infrastructure problems as Cardiff , but its well placed to serve a larger and wealthier catchment area , including annoyingly large parts of SE Wales.

The one possible bright spot for Cardiff is that Bristol is now pretty much full , this summer there will be 36 based aircraft between the based airlines there and they simply do not have the stand capacity for any further expansion.
If air travel continues to bounce back strongly as it has since the pandemic then airlines may start to look at Cardiff for potential overspill traffic.

[QUOTE=Rjk;5499901]

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Originally Posted by Mr Soul '68

Ryanair and easyJet only operate out of Bristol not Cardiff because Bristol has so many more passengers, so costs are spread over a larger number of flights and they can offer cheaper flights.
if Cardiff became more cost effective than Bristol then they'd move at the drop of a hat, however I don't think that can just be achieved by lowering fees.
they need to grow the airport first to get a critical mass of passengers, then they will be able to entice these airlines back.
this is what they were doing before COVID struck.

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You seem to know your stuff on this, I'll use it every time as long as it's not more than £120 more for two flights/holidays, it is a chicken and an egg, I think they need to discount charges for one airline and one-holiday firm like tui to get things moving.

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Originally Posted by A Quiet Monkfish

Ryanair approach CWA before Bristol, but CWA were asking for their standard landing fees even though Ryanair said they would be dwarfed by what the airport would make over the years on concessions etc. Bristol saw this and gave them a very decent deal - the rest is history.

In terms of runway facilities, access, weather, Cardiff is far better placed than Bristol - which was used in WW2 to train pilots in foggy conditions, because it gets so much fog/mist.

And numbers ? Bristol just had OK to up to 12m from 10m, and yes, more than 50% of those will travel from this side of the bridge..

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Yep that sounds about right, they get 10 million already? Jeez I think we were close pre covid too, maybe half, now it’s not even comparable. So short sighted of whoever was in charge not to give Ryan air or easy jet good terms….whats that old saying about speculate to accumulate? No the gulf is so huge nothing will work here. They won’t switch here as they are happy there.
Might aswell just shut it down and write off another few 100 million

[QUOTE=Tuerto;5499787]

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Originally Posted by Mr Soul '68

Agree, i love flying from Cardiff, hate Bristol, it's horrible to get there. I have no idea what incentives could be offered by the Welsh Goverment in order to bring low cot airlines to Cardiff. We had Wizz pull out a couple of years back and apparently (Completely anecdotal on my part) the numbers were good. I think that ryanair do a winter route to the canaries from Cardiff, or did until recently.

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It's easy to get to Bristol Airport from Cardiff. In fact it's not much longer than getting to Cardiif airport anyway, and always much cheaper flights

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Originally Posted by goats

Yep that sounds about right, they get 10 million already? Jeez I think we were close pre covid too, maybe half, now it’s not even comparable. So short sighted of whoever was in charge not to give Ryan air or easy jet good terms….whats that old saying about speculate to accumulate? No the gulf is so huge nothing will work here. They won’t switch here as they are happy there.
Might aswell just shut it down and write off another few 100 million

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Cardiff have never had that many, they had around 2 million in 2007, which dropped to half that before the Welsh government took over, they were on track to be more than 2 million by now if it hasn't been for COVID, but that dropped it to about 200k , last I heard it was up to around 800k

[QUOTE=Talksport;5500003]

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Originally Posted by Tuerto

It's easy to get to Bristol Airport from Cardiff. In fact it's not much longer than getting to Cardiif airport anyway, and always much cheaper flights

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Firstly, I don't live in Cardiff. Secondly, it was much quicker for me to get to Cardiff airport when I lived in Cardiff than get to Bristol airport. Much much quicker! I'd much rather pay slightly more for my flights and go for Cardiff airport, than book cheaper flights and fly from Bristol

[QUOTE=North Cardiff Blue;5499926]

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Originally Posted by Rjk

You seem to know your stuff on this, I'll use it every time as long as it's not more than £120 more for two flights/holidays, it is a chicken and an egg, I think they need to discount charges for one airline and one-holiday firm like tui to get things moving.

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yeah I'd much rather fly from Cardiff if I can. about £100 more and I'll still consider it .

it used to be a good option for going to the states via Dublin, but the connecting flights don't really work as well any more, so that's better via Bristol as well now

[QUOTE=Mr Soul '68;5500011]

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Originally Posted by Talksport

Firstly, I don't live in Cardiff. Secondly, it was much quicker for me to get to Cardiff airport when I lived in Cardiff than get to Bristol airport. Much much quicker! I'd much rather pay slightly more for my flights and go for Cardiff airport, than book cheaper flights and fly from Bristol

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Hmmm, i'm being quoted yet it's not my post. Anyway, completely agree with you. I pay that little bit more to fly from Cardiff. Much more relaxed.

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Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee

Thought you were in favour of Thatcher closing the mines?

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There are other forms of fossil fuels she only finished off what Harold Wilson had done ,what was the count now




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Originally Posted by light up the darkness

It doesn’t matter if the carrier doesn’t want to fly from here.

They’ll go to Exeter or Southampton for example

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Exeter isn't exactly a thriving aviation hub.

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Originally Posted by goats

Yep that sounds about right, they get 10 million already? Jeez I think we were close pre covid too, maybe half, now it’s not even comparable. So short sighted of whoever was in charge not to give Ryan air or easy jet good terms….whats that old saying about speculate to accumulate? No the gulf is so huge nothing will work here. They won’t switch here as they are happy there.
Might aswell just shut it down and write off another few 100 million

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Totally agree perhaps , I only use BS excellent facility. not that far away now with new bridge more than one way in and we will never compete due to its geographical edge and access via two motorways trunks going north , south ,west and east.

Perhaps invest the millions into something like health , policing , social care , relief m4 ,policing ,education, all well meaning needed socialist causes

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Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie

Exeter isn't exactly a thriving aviation hub.

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And Newquay / Bournemouth .

[QUOTE=Talksport;5500003]

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Originally Posted by Tuerto

It's easy to get to Bristol Airport from Cardiff. In fact it's not much longer than getting to Cardiif airport anyway, and always much cheaper flights

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I can get lifts to Cardiff and save on the parking, Bristol has many terrible flight times often ten or more leaving at 6 in the morning. Their security is slow with massive queues, it's a crap airport compared, and sliver zone parking is a rip off, Cardiff run properly should be able to take them on and beat them.

Use your local airport if you can, that's the only way it will survive.

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Originally Posted by goats

Yep that sounds about right, they get 10 million already? Jeez I think we were close pre covid too, maybe half, now it’s not even comparable. So short sighted of whoever was in charge not to give Ryan air or easy jet good terms….whats that old saying about speculate to accumulate? No the gulf is so huge nothing will work here. They won’t switch here as they are happy there.
Might aswell just shut it down and write off another few 100 million

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In the 80's BMI Baby were there, it seemed quite busy for a bit.

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Originally Posted by North Cardiff Blue

In the 80's BMI Baby were there, it seemed quite busy for a bit.

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I used to love checking in BMI baby although it was much later than that I worked there. Flights were always busy, they used to make a fortune on additional costs at the airport.

Bristol is ok pre flight, plenty of eating and drinking places, the lounges are pretty good value too. It’s the actual route march to get to the plane that’s not good, no travelators for those who have trouble walking, every flight I’ve got from there always seems to involve a sponsored walk. If a few flights arrive home at the same time, passport control is chaotic. The unmanned ones work when they want to when you eventually get to them.
It’d be Cardiff every time for me if possible.

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Originally Posted by splott parker

Bristol is ok pre flight, plenty of eating and drinking places, the lounges are pretty good value too. It’s the actual route march to get to the plane that’s not good, no travelators for those who have trouble walking, every flight I’ve got from there always seems to involve a sponsored walk. If a few flights arrive home at the same time, passport control is chaotic. The unmanned ones work when they want to when you eventually get to them.
It’d be Cardiff every time for me if possible.

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The unmanned passport check machines not working are usually down to human error.

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Originally Posted by Rjk

Cardiff have never had that many, they had around 2 million in 2007, which dropped to half that before the Welsh government took over, they were on track to be more than 2 million by now if it hasn't been for COVID, but that dropped it to about 200k , last I heard it was up to around 800k

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Do you work for the government bro :hehe:
You don’t think clearly

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Originally Posted by TWGL1

Do you work for the government bro :hehe:
You don’t think clearly

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I do not work for the government.
do you disagree with something I've said above?

[QUOTE=North Cardiff Blue;5500146]

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Originally Posted by Talksport

I can get lifts to Cardiff and save on the parking, Bristol has many terrible flight times often ten or more leaving at 6 in the morning. Their security is slow with massive queues, it's a crap airport compared, and sliver zone parking is a rip off, Cardiff run properly should be able to take them on and beat them.

Use your local airport if you can, that's the only way it will survive.

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That's the difference for me. The drive to Cardiff [for me] is probably 20 - 25 minutes quicker than Bristol, so nothing much in it, but parking for a week in Bristol is £100 minimum. A lift there and back is ideal, but even spending £30-£40 each way on a taxi from Cardiff is a better way to start and finish a holiday..