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Honestly, I just don't think this is the case.
The Bristol catchment area has a much larger and wealthier populous than the Cardiff one. Indeed, the Bristol catchment includes a significant amount of the Cardiff one.
I might eat my words here, but I don't think Jet2 is going to open a base in Cardiff any time soon. That goes for easyjet too.
You're right about the wealthier and larger catchment area for Bristol, but Jet2 serves the cheap package holiday market. It was founded at Leeds Bradford Airport, where quite a large portion of the catchment of the airport is very deprived (and I can't see most of the Alwoodley/Harrogate set choosing Jet2 anyway).
Cardiff's main hope is Ryanair who could quite easily offer a base at both. A 2-3 plane base at Cardiff would work well focused on sun routes. I know Ryanair would have worked extensively with the airport and the sums clearly haven't added up until now.
tui clearly are making it work. Cardiff is going from 3 aircraft this summer to 4 aircraft next with them. So there is some money to be made. But Europe is a big market and tui are currently is a dominant position which allows higher pricing.
What Bristol does have is one of the strongest public transport offerings in the UK. They have invested significantly in a new public transport interchange as a significant part of a strategy to enhance public transport options.
I'm not sure you could rationally describe it as that. Newcastle has half the passengers and a direct metro link alongside all the buses available, and Birmingham with only about 1.5 million passengers more has a huge range of mainline rail links available with a decent coach network, lots of local buses linking most of Birmingham and Coventry suburbia to the airport, and a future tram connection being planned.
And I think what we are going to see in Bristol is further emphasis on public transport options. South Wales (Newport, Cardiff and Swansea) have fairly decent public transport options with both National Express and Flixbus offering frequent services (especially up to Cardiff). Bristol Airport, like many airports in the UK, will likely offer further financial inducements to encourage both continuance and expansion of those services. Especially as traffic grows.
In terms of local transport, the Bristol Airport Flyer is already one of Britain's most frequent services. It operates a very frequent 24 hour a day service on almost every day of the year. In fact, it's incredibly frequent - every 15 minutes even at 3am and every 7-8 minutes through most of the day.
Weston has a service which operates at least hourly 24/7 and Bath has an around hourly service 24/7 with the Air Decker.
It's not bad in terms of frequency, but the question that we need to ask is - how many passengers do those services carry per bus on average, and can they genuinely support any serious capacity increase?
Bristol already allows their staff to use the service for free until at least the end of 2027 and I imagine we'll see further promotion to the public (though parking being so profitable means they have a perverse mindset to promote parking instead).
Jet2 might of course, but it’s very unlikely and due to the poor performance of their new Bournemouth base it’s even less likely. They were a target of Cardiff before but they went to Bristol instead.
Tbh I'm surprised they chose Bournemouth as the majority of the catchment area doesn't really fit their target demographics. Hopefully their fortunes improve, but it's a strange choice.
Most people arrive to airports like BRS by car or taxi, there’s no sign of this changing. The roads aren’t great but it’s not stopped the airport becoming one of the largest regional airports in the U.K.
That's true, but, as I mentioned before, there is going to be a point where traffic problems get so severe that road journeys to the airport are severely disrupted.
airlines aren’t in the business of investing in airports like Cardiff if it means spreading themselves too thinly as it just results in increased costs and reduced revenue. Not a great position to be in.
There are several "zombie" airports in the UK, of which Cardiff (Rhoose) is clearly one. They have lost out over the years for a variety of reasons, but poor location and availability of better alternatives are key factors.
Cardiff and Bristol airports developed in parallel before 2000 and Cardiff reached over 2 million passengers in 2006 (reached by Bristol in 2000). However, Bristol had over 10 million passengers in 2024, whereas Cardiff's usage declined to less than 1 million. Apart from holiday flights, only 4 destinations (Amsterdam, Belfast, Dublin and Edinburgh) are now served from Cardiff.
Cardiff Airport is only being kept alive with financial support from the Welsh government (who own it) due to "nationalist" sentiment. If Reform win the Senedd election in 2026, as now seems possible, closure could be on the cards to save money.
You're right about the wealthier and larger catchment area for Bristol, but Jet2 serves the cheap package holiday market. It was founded at Leeds Bradford Airport, where quite a large portion of the catchment of the airport is very deprived (and I can't see most of the Alwoodley/Harrogate set choosing Jet2 anyway).
Perhaps Ryanair will make it work. Hopefully the massive investment by TfW into rail/buses helps demand too.
I'm not sure you could rationally describe it as that. Newcastle has half the passengers and a direct metro link alongside all the buses available, and Birmingham with only about 1.5 million passengers more has a huge range of mainline rail links available with a decent coach network, lots of local buses linking most of Birmingham and Coventry suburbia to the airport, and a future tram connection being planned.
The coach network isn't terrible, but it has limited appeal (journey time and general attractiveness of a a bus/coach based solution).
It's not bad in terms of frequency, but the question that we need to ask is - how many passengers do those services carry per bus on average, and can they genuinely support any serious capacity increase?
Hopefully North Somerset Council imposes further significant public transport improvements and promotion as a planning condition for expansion.
Tbh I'm surprised they chose Bournemouth as the majority of the catchment area doesn't really fit their target demographics. Hopefully their fortunes improve, but it's a strange choice.
That's true, but, as I mentioned before, there is going to be a point where traffic problems get so severe that road journeys to the airport are severely disrupted.
True, I wasn't envisaging a massive investment in Cardiff all at once. A gradual increase in routes on offer would be more sustainable.
Jet2 chose LBA to start up because it was one of the few airports by that time that had no real ‘low cost’ airline ops. There were other reasons too, things like cheaper advertising to the local area when compared to other cities. However the Jet2 now are very far from the ‘low cost’ airline of 2002/3, they are a leisure airline with a low cost base but they certainly are not ‘low cost’ when it comes to the ticket prices. They offer a full package now, they compete more with TUI than easyjet or Ryanair.
The reason for going into Bournemouth was a strategic one, they want coverage of the U.K. so that most people live within 90 minutes of a Jet2 base, I think they’re at around 85% coverage with the Bournemouth base opening. Perhaps it will pick up at Bournemouth when people on the South Coast learn what Jet2 are about as they’ll have been largely irrelevant of until recently.
Sadly in the case of Cardiff when consolidation occurred in 2008 following the financial crash, the sector lost countless airlines and tour operators to mergers or failures. This resulted in far less options for airline partnerships with airports. CWL got the strong performance through attracting Bmibaby (as did Teesside) but they are one of the many that are no more, and the easyJet’s, Jet2s, Ryanair’s etc are the dominant high volume operators now. There is very little commercial value in duplicating routes and therefore costs by serving both BRS and CWL and hence CWL (being a bit more remote to the catchment area) has struggled to regain its passenger numbers.
The airlines don’t care about how passengers get to an airport, they could arrive on horse and cart for all they care, but so long as they continue doing so they will serve the airport that almost guarantees success and revenue. Unfortunately CWL (and others like DSA and Teesside) will always struggle not attain the passenger numbers they may have reached in the past and they are being kept on life support due to political or local pride and not a strong business case. This also makes them susceptible to changes in political direction which makes them even less attractive to airlines that need an element of certainty.
I agree that Teesside and Cardiff are "zombie" airports that are being kept open on life support at significant cost for political reasons.
IMO, Derry, Dundee and Prestwick Airports fall into the same category. Norwich and Humberside appear to be hardly viable as airports, although they probably need to be retained as airfields to support the offshore energy industry.
Given that Belfast City and Southampton Airports have shortish runways and limited area for expansion, is there a case for closing them too and concentrating airport expansion on the nearby airports of Belfast Aldergrove and Bournemouth respectively, despite the rail connectivity at the former 2 airports?
I agree that Teesside and Cardiff are "zombie" airports that are being kept open on life support at significant cost for political reasons.
IMO, Derry, Dundee and Prestwick Airports fall into the same category. Norwich and Humberside appear to be hardly viable as airports, although they probably need to be retained as airfields to support the offshore energy industry.
Given that Belfast City and Southampton Airports have shortish runways and limited area for expansion, is there a case for closing them too and concentrating airport expansion on the nearby airports of Belfast Aldergrove and Bournemouth respectively, despite the rail connectivity at the former 2 airports?
Belfast City has around 40 arrivals and 40 departures each day. It’s not exactly struggling. It doesn’t have the longest runway but it is long enough to allow plenty of international flights to Europe. It has a different catchment area to Belfast International and the wealthy folk around Belfast and Co Down often prefer it, being more convenient. The fact that many routes are duplicated and yet successful indicates the 2 separate markets (eg Amsterdam, Palma, Gatwick, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester are all available from both airports).
I agree that Teesside and Cardiff are "zombie" airports that are being kept open on life support at significant cost for political reasons.
IMO, Derry, Dundee and Prestwick Airports fall into the same category. Norwich and Humberside appear to be hardly viable as airports, although they probably need to be retained as airfields to support the offshore energy industry.
Given that Belfast City and Southampton Airports have shortish runways and limited area for expansion, is there a case for closing them too and concentrating airport expansion on the nearby airports of Belfast Aldergrove and Bournemouth respectively, despite the rail connectivity at the former 2 airports?
I draw a distinction here. Where airports are (mostly) privately owned and operated on a for profit basis (or indeed strategic commercial value) then there is no question about their viability. Humberside being a case in point here, last FY it reported £3000.00 in operating losses, in other words the price of a second hand Vauxhall corsa. However this was mitigated by property revenue which actually meant the airport made a profit. Clearly it wouldn’t be too difficult to generate an operating profit by just increasing the charter flight offering a bit and taking more in car park revenue.
On the other hand DSA which the council there want to reopen using public money was reporting operating losses of £10million per year on average, this was not offset by property rental and so in effect the operating company were paying £20.00 every time a passenger passed through the departure lounge. This is a commercial failure and therefore I cannot fathom how it is a justified public investment to reactivate it. Indeed if it didn’t reopen then you would see TUI put more flights into Humberside and therefore the market will still be served but in doing so it would result in minimal risk to the public sector.
However, for many places having better access to the big airports would be much more use than trying to get a small operation together. Doncaster-Sheffield for example, could be much more efficiently connected to Manchester, East Midlands and Birmingham.
Likewise, Cardiff needs to connect to Bristol. The current Cardiff airport is so constrained by infrastructure and I cannot see any appetite for the necessary rail and M4 links. Maybe then there is an argument for a Bristol rail connection.
Jet2 might of course, but it’s very unlikely and due to the poor performance of their new Bournemouth base it’s even less likely. They were a target of Cardiff before but they went to Bristol instead.
Bournemouth is a tough one as both Jet2 and Ryanair opened bases at a previously very quiet airport.
In 2019, it had less than half the passenger numbers of Cardiff.
There's a fairly large market there and I think we need to see how it develops. Maybe there isn't room for three operators to be based there (tui is there too), and it might end up with Jet2 leaving. But, as I said, it's early days.
I'm not sure you could rationally describe it as that. Newcastle has half the passengers and a direct metro link alongside all the buses available, and Birmingham with only about 1.5 million passengers more has a huge range of mainline rail links available with a decent coach network, lots of local buses linking most of Birmingham and Coventry suburbia to the airport, and a future tram connection being planned.
Yes, but Bristol Airport is pretty rural and is far from any rail infrastructure. Plus it's not exactly easy terrain to build a rail/ tram link.
Birmingham Airport is surrounded by urban areas. It's right next to a motorway junction. It's also next to a railway mainline.
You're making a totally unfair and false comparison.
The bus services to the airport are fantastic, really, by British standards given what they are dealing with.
There are several "zombie" airports in the UK, of which Cardiff (Rhoose) is clearly one. They have lost out over the years for a variety of reasons, but poor location and availability of better alternatives are key factors.
Cardiff would likely still operate even if the Welsh Government sold it and withdrew any subsidy. It has a large British Airways maintenance base, could probably eek out a million passengers a year, and was privately owned for much of its existence. That means it's not a true zombie airport.
Jet2 chose LBA to start up because it was one of the few airports by that time that had no real ‘low cost’ airline ops. There were other reasons too, things like cheaper advertising to the local area when compared to other cities. However the Jet2 now are very far from the ‘low cost’ airline of 2002/3, they are a leisure airline with a low cost base but they certainly are not ‘low cost’ when it comes to the ticket prices. They offer a full package now, they compete more with TUI than easyjet or Ryanair.
I agree that they're certainly not an Ultra Low Cost Carrier like Ryanair or Frontier, but for an airline that regularly has basic fares available below £100, they fit pretty well into the standard low cost bracket alongside EasyJet and Wizz Air (e.g. their current promotion is offering 30,000 seats at £39 each, very similar to the usual one-way basic fares that EasyJet will offer for UK to Europe flights).
The reason for going into Bournemouth was a strategic one, they want coverage of the U.K. so that most people live within 90 minutes of a Jet2 base, I think they’re at around 85% coverage with the Bournemouth base opening. Perhaps it will pick up at Bournemouth when people on the South Coast learn what Jet2 are about as they’ll have been largely irrelevant of until recently.
It makes sense in terms of strategic planning, although I think demographics will be a massive limiting factor for Bournemouth-based flights, given the driving/rail journey time from the poorer areas of Hants and the wider South Coast that will be the best fit for Jet2's brand (e.g. Basingstoke is about 1hr20 from Gatwick by car/1hr10 by train, Bournemouth is over 2hrs by public transport/1hr10 driving, but the drive time is highly susceptible to delays on the one
decent quality road through the New Forest. The comparison is even worse if you add Southampton to comparison, especially for Portsmouth/Gosport/Havant/Bognor Regis/Littlehampton.
Sadly in the case of Cardiff when consolidation occurred in 2008 following the financial crash, the sector lost countless airlines and tour operators to mergers or failures. This resulted in far less options for airline partnerships with airports. CWL got the strong performance through attracting Bmibaby (as did Teesside) but they are one of the many that are no more, and the easyJet’s, Jet2s, Ryanair’s etc are the dominant high volume operators now. There is very little commercial value in duplicating routes and therefore costs by serving both BRS and CWL and hence CWL (being a bit more remote to the catchment area) has struggled to regain its passenger numbers.
The loss of BMIbaby causing a significant downturn in the airport's fortunes is a decent explanation, although the presence of Vueling could be a useful tool for expansion too.
The airlines don’t care about how passengers get to an airport, they could arrive on horse and cart for all they care, but so long as they continue doing so they will serve the airport that almost guarantees success and revenue. Unfortunately CWL (and others like DSA and Teesside) will always struggle not attain the passenger numbers they may have reached in the past and they are being kept on life support due to political or local pride and not a strong business case. This also makes them susceptible to changes in political direction which makes them even less attractive to airlines that need an element of certainty.
How much does the BA maintenance facility contribute to the airport's operational costs? That's one advantage that places like DSA and Teesside don't have.
Belfast City has around 40 arrivals and 40 departures each day. It’s not exactly struggling. It doesn’t have the longest runway but it is long enough to allow plenty of international flights to Europe. It has a different catchment area to Belfast International and the wealthy folk around Belfast and Co Down often prefer it, being more convenient. The fact that many routes are duplicated and yet successful indicates the 2 separate markets (eg Amsterdam, Palma, Gatwick, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester are all available from both airports).
Indeed. One look at areas like Holywood, Seahill and Helen's Bay, and you'd quickly be able to understand why there's strong demand for a local airport with decent regional connections.
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Yes, but Bristol Airport is pretty rural and is far from any rail infrastructure. Plus it's not exactly easy terrain to build a rail/ tram link.
Birmingham Airport is surrounded by urban areas. It's right next to a motorway junction. It's also next to a railway mainline.
You're making a totally unfair and false comparison.
The bus services to the airport are fantastic, really, by British standards given what they are dealing with.
It is rural, but that's a product of poor decisions re Filton more than anything. Easy terrain? Not particularly, but it is only 3.5 miles from the mainline at the western edge of Long Ashton.
I wouldn't call the bus services fantastic by any measure given the passenger numbers (Belfast has similar links for an airport with approx. 1.5 million less passengers), but you're entitled to your opinion.
It is rural, but that's a product of poor decisions re Filton more than anything. Easy terrain? Not particularly, but it is only 3.5 miles from the mainline at the western edge of Long Ashton.
I wouldn't call the bus services fantastic by any measure given the passenger numbers (Belfast has similar links for an airport with approx. 1.5 million less passengers), but you're entitled to your opinion.
Britain doesn't do infrastructure. A rail link to the airport is not going to be built. It's highly questionable how viable it would be at current passenger numbers (i.e. it wouldn't be).
Filton should have been picked as the South West's main airport, but that ship sailed a long time ago.
The flyer has significantly better service than Belfast's 300 service.
The A1 operates every 15 minutes from 3am when the 300 is hourly until 6am. The 300 peak is a service every 12 minutes. The A1 peaks at a service each 7 minutes. The A1's peak service also operates for far longer. The 300 has a 2.5 hour gap overnight which stretches the definition of 24/7 service whilst the A1 operates at least half hourly even at its least frequent times. The A1 has a very similar weekend service with it being every 8 minutes through the day whilst the 300's Sunday service is heavily reduced to no more than two buses an hour.
The A1 is basically operating as frequently as it can and any growth of it would likely see the A1 split into an express route to the centre and a few 'connect' style routes which make more stops.
@AlastairFraser the Jet2 base at Bournemouth was for reasons outlined previously, I doubt Jet2 will close the base (it’s not something they usually do) because they need to market themselves in that part of the world. I think they’d have preferred Southampton but the runway limits the destinations possible and that’s undesirable. I think we might see easyjet go in there big before too long which will enable TUI to take seats and we might see a reduction in the TUI base at Bournemouth as a result of that.
Re Cardiff and the BA MRO facility, yes it has that but that alone will not pay the bills. I feel a more pragmatic approach to passenger services is key here. Obviously the Welsh Government think that Cardiff should have access to long haul flights, they even bought in Qatar (yes I did mean to type bought) to service an apparent demand for links to a Middle Eastern hub, however it wasn’t really a viable route and it got binned around Covid never to return. If they are chasing routes like that they’ll never actually achieve their objectives.
You are correct that Vueling offers something a bit different, long may that continue. But it’s not going to deliver the large step passenger volume that Cardiff seems to be angling for. So it needs to operate within its means, and if it can’t do that, well, it’s not really offering the people of Wales value for money. I do believe there is room for Cardiff but at a much lower passenger throughput. Even the KLM service is seeing less passengers use it than the same service from Humberside!
I don’t envisage a time where there are plethora airlines all looking for somewhere to expand. EasyJet, Jet2 and Ryanair have all stated their true intentions by going to Bristol and making it their hub for the South West and Southern Wales catchment.
Same problem for DSA and the Council and local mayoral combined authority appear to be approaching it in the same way that the Welsh Government have with Cardiff. Politicians have absolutely zero influence in airline strategy. If anything they have hindered it with APD. Talk is cheap, but airports are a source of local pride and so they’re easy vote winners. That’s the sad fact of the matter here.
Same problem for DSA and the Council and local mayoral combined authority appear to be approaching it in the same way that the Welsh Government have with Cardiff. Politicians have absolutely zero influence in airline strategy
They do have quite a lot of influence actually.
It's called cold hard cash.
If someone splashes enough of it, they'd have United to Newark and Emirates to Dubai tomorrow. Obviously it would be madness and a huge waste of money, but it is influence.
Obviously the Welsh Government think that Cardiff should have access to long haul flights, they even bought in Qatar (yes I did mean to type bought) to service an apparent demand for links to a Middle Eastern hub, however it wasn’t really a viable route and it got binned around Covid never to return. If they are chasing routes like that they’ll never actually achieve their objectives.
You are correct that Vueling offers something a bit different, long may that continue. But it’s not going to deliver the large step passenger volume that Cardiff seems to be angling for. So it needs to operate within its means, and if it can’t do that, well, it’s not really offering the people of Wales value for money.
You are right they really want(ed) long haul. The Qatar thing was a bit of a joke. I flew them summer 2019 and there were fewer than 60 passengers on the 787 each way. That's during peak season when Heathrow flights would be full.
No way they were making money on it.
Cardiff has one option to get volume through the door. Jet2 and easyjet aren't coming. The only option is headquartered just across the water and have a well-known personality as their CEO.
As I posted above, the airline has worked with the airport and clearly the sums haven't worked out otherwise there'd be a base at Cardiff already.
The challenge for Cardiff is that from the centre of Cardiff you can be at Heathrow within 3 hours. Even at 1 hour to Cardiff's own airport that is a small difference. Driving you can be at Heathrow even faster, though obviously you would then need to park.
Cardiff really only suits the budget airlines and/or connections into hubs like KLM's offer. KLM always seems really expensive flying from Cardiff making most options better to fly from Heathrow and cut out the Amsterdam connection.
However, budget airlines are unlikely to turn the finances of the airport around unless they drastically increase numbers. Ryanair are not known for wanting to pay high charges to the airports they serve.
Maybe Cardiff could try Lufthansa, Air France etc on similar bases to KLM. However, I suspect the demand just is not there.
They do have quite a lot of influence actually.
It's called cold hard cash.
If someone splashes enough of it, they'd have United to Newark and Emirates to Dubai tomorrow. Obviously it would be madness and a huge waste of money, but it is influence.
You are right they really want(ed) long haul. The Qatar thing was a bit of a joke. I flew them summer 2019 and there were fewer than 60 passengers on the 787 each way. That's during peak season when Heathrow flights would be full.
No way they were making money on it.
Cardiff has one option to get volume through the door. Jet2 and easyjet aren't coming. The only option is headquartered just across the water and have a well-known personality as their CEO.
As I posted above, the airline has worked with the airport and clearly the sums haven't worked out otherwise there'd be a base at Cardiff already.
Hypothetically yes although the competition rules might block such a move.
I think Ryanair is an outside possibility but as has been said by Topological they’ve been working together for years and still there is no base so it’s highly likely that there’s not much interest.
The challenge for Cardiff is that from the centre of Cardiff you can be at Heathrow within 3 hours. Even at 1 hour to Cardiff's own airport that is a small difference. Driving you can be at Heathrow even faster, though obviously you would then need to park.
Cardiff really only suits the budget airlines and/or connections into hubs like KLM's offer. KLM always seems really expensive flying from Cardiff making most options better to fly from Heathrow and cut out the Amsterdam connection.
However, budget airlines are unlikely to turn the finances of the airport around unless they drastically increase numbers. Ryanair are not known for wanting to pay high charges to the airports they serve.
Maybe Cardiff could try Lufthansa, Air France etc on similar bases to KLM. However, I suspect the demand just is not there.
Lufthansa have an unofficial rule of thumb when considering new routes and that is that the airport they are looking at should have a minimum 5mppa throughput. There are some exceptions to this, but generally speaking that’s their benchmark.
Lufthansa have an unofficial rule of thumb when considering new routes and that is that the airport they are looking at should have a minimum 5mppa throughput. There are some exceptions to this, but generally speaking that’s their benchmark.
APD is paid by the passenger not the airline. APD makes absolutely no difference to airline strategy.
Case in point: long haul flights from Northern Ireland are exempt from APD. Which is nice, except there are no longer any scheduled long haul flights from Belfast International; Virgin pulled out at Covid and have never gone back. That should go to show just how little influence APD has on anything.
APD is paid by the passenger not the airline. APD makes absolutely no difference to airline strategy.
Case in point: long haul flights from Northern Ireland are exempt from APD. Which is nice, except there are no longer any scheduled long haul flights from Belfast International; Virgin pulled out at Covid and have never gone back. That should go to show just how little influence APD has on anything.
Whilst I would agree on a macro level that yes, the passengers pay APD, you may notice that Michael O’Leary often high balls with the U.K. Government over APD. Whether the airline pays it or the passenger it’s still part of the ticket price when a passenger books. It’s an added cost which could sway demand one way or another on more marginal routes like those from CWL should Ryanair ever look at opening a base there, which is what I was referring to when I mentioned APD.
There's no reason why Cardiff and Bristol couldn't co-exist though. There's a certain amount of catchment area overlap but it is still 60 miles from Cardiff Airport to Bristol Airport. I don't perceive Cardiff airport as a complete basket case, unlike the likes of DSA or Teesside.
There's no reason why Cardiff and Bristol couldn't co-exist though. There's a certain amount of catchment area overlap but it is still 60 miles from Cardiff Airport to Bristol Airport. I don't perceive Cardiff airport as a complete basket case, unlike the likes of DSA or Teesside.
You’re right it’s not a basket case, but it will be if the Welsh Government keep looking for the magic bean and neglect to allow the airport to operate within its means and to a level it’s likely to attain at the moment. When the DSA funding is approved (which it will be, I have little doubt) we will see the exact same thing emerge there, perhaps with a similar legal challenge to that raised by Bristol against Cardiff.
Let’s face it, neither are ever going to rival Manchester in size, but the langue coming from their respective groups of politicians would have you believe otherwise. This is the inherent problem with local pride and political populism trampling over sound logic and business sensibility.
you may notice that Michael O’Leary often high balls with the U.K. Government over APD. Whether the airline pays it or the passenger it’s still part of the ticket price when a passenger books. It’s an added cost which could sway demand one way or another on more marginal routes
The airlines would like to see APD abolished for two reasons, really.
1. It isn't an amount of money that materially impacts on a individual passenger's choice to fly, but
2. Cumulatively, it adds up to quite a bit of money.
EasyJet keep putting pressure on the IOM government to either abolish APD or change it to the domestic rate. The IOM government have identified it would cost them over £3m a year in reduced revenue. EasyJet say it will result in lower fares but I think we all know that that £3m would simply go to EasyJet and Loganair instead.
Obviously abolishing APD would give an immediate increase to the airline's yield. But that wouldn't make marginal airports any less marginal, given that the APD removal would also benefit the bigger airport down the road. The lack of APD hasn't tempted airlines to fly long haul from Belfast.
Let’s face it, neither are ever going to rival Manchester in size, but the langue coming from their respective groups of politicians would have you believe otherwise. This is the inherent problem with local pride and political populism trampling over sound logic and business sensibility.
Cardiff is an interesting one. There's absolutely no reason why it couldn't carve out a very nice living for itself, in much the same way Liverpool Airport has managed to do despite being an hour away from Manchester. Both Liverpool and Manchester have a significant presence from EasyJet, Jet2, and Ryanair. No reason why Cardiff and Bristol can't also co-exist.
Clearly neither south west airport is going to be a major long-haul hub, though. Both are too close to Heathrow.
Birmingham does quite well and is nearer to Heathrow. The problem is that Bristol and Cardiff did not combine and the locations of each makes access from the other city impractical.
Liverpool has carved out a separate niche to Manchester and does well, but the North West is much more densely populated than South Wales. It also holds that you can fly to Liverpool from one of the destinations Manchesters budget offering does not serve, and be in Manchester within an hour (or near enough, I never tried the coach). Whereas flying into Cardiff does not get you to Bristol in an hour and there is no shortgage of similar budget flights from Bristol anyway.
The Welsh government need to start plugging Cardiff into a South West region rather than trying to go it alone.
The airlines would like to see APD abolished for two reasons, really.
1. It isn't an amount of money that materially impacts on a individual passenger's choice to fly, but
2. Cumulatively, it adds up to quite a bit of money.
EasyJet keep putting pressure on the IOM government to either abolish APD or change it to the domestic rate. The IOM government have identified it would cost them over £3m a year in reduced revenue. EasyJet say it will result in lower fares but I think we all know that that £3m would simply go to EasyJet and Loganair instead.
Obviously abolishing APD would give an immediate increase to the airline's yield. But that wouldn't make marginal airports any less marginal, given that the APD removal would also benefit the bigger airport down the road. The lack of APD hasn't tempted airlines to fly long haul from Belfast.
Cardiff is an interesting one. There's absolutely no reason why it couldn't carve out a very nice living for itself, in much the same way Liverpool Airport has managed to do despite being an hour away from Manchester. Both Liverpool and Manchester have a significant presence from EasyJet, Jet2, and Ryanair. No reason why Cardiff and Bristol can't also co-exist.
Clearly neither south west airport is going to be a major long-haul hub, though. Both are too close to Heathrow.
It wouldn’t have any impact on marginal long haul routes, no. The costs associated with those routes mean APD is inconsequential and the requirement for high yielding mix of regular premium fare paying passengers and belly freight contracts is what sustains such routes. See Emirates at Newcastle. Belfast is probably just too close to Dublin and has too small a catchment area to deliver that. Like I said the APD issue is the domain of the low cost airlines of easyjet and Ryanair. Neither airline is likely to have any interest in expanding into Cardiff on any large scale because Bristol does a better job of that simply because it has access to a bigger catchment area. Cardiff suffers from proximity to BRS and the associated overlap of catchment areas where there is no real distinction between the two. Airlines do not like duplicating costs to serve the same market when doing so would have marginal gains at best. It’s effectively the market rationalising the airport network. See also DSA.
I don’t think you can draw parallels with Liverpool and Manchester simply because Liverpool itself has an immediate catchment area of some 2 million and is a fairly well known city with associated European tourist appeal. The populated North West is, I believe, the most densely populated in the U.K. outside of London and the South East. Easyjet have managed to sustain a base at Liverpool in spite of their subsequent move into and growth from Manchester.
Cardiff cannot compete. There is clearly a market for interlining via Amsterdam and Dublin, and some leisure destinations which is evidenced by the four aircraft TUI base and the non based leisure services from Ryanair and Vueling. However it’ll probably never recover to the levels seen 20 years ago, and so a realistic appraisal which should include maximising revenue at the passenger levels the airport currently sustains, should be the priority to ensure longevity of the airport.
@AlastairFraser the Jet2 base at Bournemouth was for reasons outlined previously, I doubt Jet2 will close the base (it’s not something they usually do) because they need to market themselves in that part of the world. I think they’d have preferred Southampton but the runway limits the destinations possible and that’s undesirable. I think we might see easyjet go in there big before too long which will enable TUI to take seats and we might see a reduction in the TUI base at Bournemouth as a result of that.
Fair enough. I hope EasyJet do well in Southampton, it's a well located airport for connections, especially with the range of rail destinations available.
Re Cardiff and the BA MRO facility, yes it has that but that alone will not pay the bills. I feel a more pragmatic approach to passenger services is key here. Obviously the Welsh Government think that Cardiff should have access to long haul flights, they even bought in Qatar (yes I did mean to type bought) to service an apparent demand for links to a Middle Eastern hub, however it wasn’t really a viable route and it got binned around Covid never to return. If they are chasing routes like that they’ll never actually achieve their objectives.
True, they would be best to focus on cutting a deal for existing low cost operators to use the airport a bit more, rather than focusing on a Middle Eastern or transatlantic carrier that won't stay for long.
You are correct that Vueling offers something a bit different, long may that continue. But it’s not going to deliver the large step passenger volume that Cardiff seems to be angling for. So it needs to operate within its means, and if it can’t do that, well, it’s not really offering the people of Wales value for money.
I wonder if BA would do well there seasonally with a few nicer continental destinations to start with. I'm sure they used to run a few from Southampton at some point.
I don’t envisage a time where there are plethora airlines all looking for somewhere to expand. EasyJet, Jet2 and Ryanair have all stated their true intentions by going to Bristol and making it their hub for the South West and Southern Wales catchment.
Yeah, I don't think it's going to be a time of exponential growth for airlines in the UK either. A future government negotiating a ETIAS and 90/180 exemption for tourism could be worth lobbying for though.
Same problem for DSA and the Council and local mayoral combined authority appear to be approaching it in the same way that the Welsh Government have with Cardiff. Politicians have absolutely zero influence in airline strategy. If anything they have hindered it with APD. Talk is cheap, but airports are a source of local pride and so they’re easy vote winners. That’s the sad fact of the matter here.
They are, but, as other members have identified, Cardiff is much less of a basketcase than DSA is.
They have the MRO, they have a population catchment of well over a million people, and the pull of a nearby sizeable city with plenty of business travel, university students and a bit of tourist appeal too.
DSA isn't really close enough to Sheffield/the Peak District to get the uni/business/tourist travel, there's no big maintenance base planned AFAIK and the reasonable short-haul population catchment for the airport is already split 3 ways, with the Wythenshawe seventh circle of hell and London airports for medium and long haul flights.
@AlastairFraser i do hope Southampton reclaims lost ground with easyjet. Seems to make sense to me that they’d go in there, I believe Leeds is being touted as a base too but we shall see what happens with DSA as the CLEUD judgement over night time movements at Leeds may have thrown a spanner in the works!
I couldn’t comment on the nature of business on the Humberside KLM service but there is a large shipping presence on the Humber and I believe ship crew changeovers are very common and possibly a source of regular custom. It’s also quite remote from other airports so the convenience is certainly a USP that I don’t believe could be replicated at DSA.
Cardiff isn’t a basket case but it is limited in scope and as any business should do it needs to play to its strengths and not try to achieve the unachievable. It’s why I believe airports should be private sector led because the lack of a joined up airport framework in this country inevitably means its survival of the fittest and the local pride slant results in £hundreds of millions being wasted.
I don’t think you can draw parallels with Liverpool and Manchester simply because Liverpool itself has an immediate catchment area of some 2 million and is a fairly well known city with associated European tourist appeal. The populated North West is, I believe, the most densely populated in the U.K. outside of London and the South East. Easyjet have managed to sustain a base at Liverpool in spite of their subsequent move into and growth from Manchester.
The population of Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea alone is about 1 million people, and Bristol Airport is a pain in the arse to get to from South Wales, even more so than Rhoose. 20 years ago Bristol and Cardiff airports were pretty closely matched, now they're not.
I agree about it being survival of the fittest, though. Bristol had good private sector management, Cardiff had very poor private sector management (hence why the Welsh Assembly own it now), and so Bristol has taken off (pardon the pun) and Cardiff has not.
The population of Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea alone is about 1 million people, and Bristol Airport is a pain in the arse to get to from South Wales, even more so than Rhoose. 20 years ago Bristol and Cardiff airports were pretty closely matched, now they're not.
South Wales has a population of around 2.2 million. Of course some, like those in Newport/ Monmouthshire might prefer Bristol, but that is a fairly substantial population.
The airport's real issue has been the lack of ability to attract a based low cost carrier. They very nearly got there with Wizz, but that didn't go well (not entirely Cardiff's fault - Wizz did some very odd things in the UK during Covid).
There's also been the demise of a domestic airline. Cardiff used to support multiple daily flights to Edinburgh with a 737. Now, they might not be able to retain Loganair's almost daily E145 service.
Poor private management had undoubtedly been an issue. As has the Welsh Government's fantasy of long-haui flights rather than focusing on bread and butter sun routes.
We can also see that Welsh passengers seem very happy to travel to Bristol for their flights. easyjet/ Jet2/ Ryanair flights from there all have plenty of Welsh passengers.
The population of Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea alone is about 1 million people, and Bristol Airport is a pain in the arse to get to from South Wales, even more so than Rhoose. 20 years ago Bristol and Cardiff airports were pretty closely matched, now they're not.
I agree about it being survival of the fittest, though. Bristol had good private sector management, Cardiff had very poor private sector management (hence why the Welsh Assembly own it now), and so Bristol has taken off (pardon the pun) and Cardiff has not.
Very low incomes though and high relative deprivation. The point is that the airlines with the market stronghold - easyjet, Jet2, Ryanair, just simply wanted to use Bristol and widen the net than use Cardiff with its limited appeal to the wider catchment area. It’s nothing to do with mismanagement, just a functioning commercial market going where the demand is. It really is that simple. There’s no doubting that Cardiff has the better facilities in terms of runway and surface access, but it’s not the only example where less well configured airports do better so it’s pointless trying to make a counterpoint. Blaming poor management offers nothing than a distraction to the investment if many millions of tax payers £’s to try to justify what they’re doing. It’s nonsense. See also DSA.
The wizzair stuff was a distraction. Alarm bells should always start ringing when a ULCC starts flying from an airport because of the subsidies it can provide. It’s (the airport) doing so because it doesn’t have enough latent demand to sustain operations any other way. Cardiff were, like DSA (see a pattern here) also involved in project blackbird which saw both airports underwrite the losses Flybe sustained by trying to find a place to put their E-jets to use. Both operations ended in tears. Parallels with DSA are striking.
@AlastairFraser i do hope Southampton reclaims lost ground with easyjet. Seems to make sense to me that they’d go in there, I believe Leeds is being touted as a base too but we shall see what happens with DSA as the CLEUD judgement over night time movements at Leeds may have thrown a spanner in the works!
I couldn’t comment on the nature of business on the Humberside KLM service but there is a large shipping presence on the Humber and I believe ship crew changeovers are very common and possibly a source of regular custom. It’s also quite remote from other airports so the convenience is certainly a USP that I don’t believe could be replicated at DSA.
Shipping makes sense, and it is quite remote (although the roads seem decent in the former Humberside county area for such a low density area, lots of dual carriageways linking to the nearest large urban area and motorways).
Cardiff isn’t a basket case but it is limited in scope and as any business should do it needs to play to its strengths and not try to achieve the unachievable. It’s why I believe airports should be private sector led because the lack of a joined up airport framework in this country inevitably means its survival of the fittest and the local pride slant results in £hundreds of millions being wasted.
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