if
it's about Cardiff..
Sport, Entertainment, Transportation, Business,
Development Projects, Leisure, Eating, Drinking,
Nightlife, Shopping, Train Spotting! etc.. then we want it here!
Cardiff Airport secures new airline to operate routes to Paris and Glasgow
20 Dec 2013 08:30
The publicly-owned airport has signed a deal with CityJet, following the announcement Flybe that it will be withdrawing these routes from January
Cardiff Airport secures new airline to operate routes to Paris and Glasgow
20 Dec 2013 08:30
The publicly-owned airport has signed a deal with CityJet, following the announcement Flybe that it will be withdrawing these routes from January
That's very good news. It also mentions routes to Edinburgh and Jersey in the summer. With it being a new airline for the airport (I think at least), hopefully it might result in one or two other routes being added as well.
If I'd maintained a list of destinations that I DIDN'T wish to see announced as a 'new' route from Cardiff, then Tenerife would certainly have been at the top of it.
For me, this is about as exciting an announcement as another Greggs opening on Queen St.
If I'd maintained a list of destinations that I DIDN'T wish to see announced as a 'new' route from Cardiff, then Tenerife would certainly have been at the top of it.
For me, this is about as exciting an announcement as another Greggs opening on Queen St.
You have to assume though, that Ryanair will not want to be operating only one route out of an airport. If this is a success I'm sure there will be more to follow.
Perhaps the airport are offering it as a loss-leader
They are testing the market presumably - and it gives them a cosh to beat Bristol with when it comes to negotiating landing charges.
Given the demographics of the airport catchment area Ryanair is probably a better fit for Cardiff than Easyjet would be. I still think Jet2 would be the best get. The seem to operate from airports and regions very similar to Cardiff.
Ryanair's business model is generally more geared to headline dirt cheap fares coupled with (invariably but not always) flying to more peripheral airports . Ryanair don't tend to fly into the main airports of a given city, but choose instead to go for airports which are often 'secondary' city airports (eg they don't fly into Barcelona but fly into Girona). These airports are up to a two hour drive away from the cities. They therefore reap lower landing charges which can feed through to cheaper fares.
Passengers choosing Ryanair are more likely to go out of their way to travel to obscure airports in less accessible areas(such as Cardiff). The lower fares tend to appeal to the more cost conscious passenger (ie those with less to spend - which might suit the poorer pockets of the catchment area around Cardiff).
IMO, Easyjet is a far superior outfit to Ryanair, but Ryanair are a more realistic target for Cardiff airport.
On becoming chief executive, Mr Horne told his audience, his priority was to arrest the decline which had been going on for five years.
“It had gone from 2.7m passengers to below a million.
“So, the first priority was to talk to our existing customers, the airlines, and give them the confidence that decline wasn’t going to continue and there was an opportunity for them, going forward, which was vitally important.”
I hope that's a mistake on Western Mail's part and not the chief executive!
Bizarrely, Mr Horne , who I have met, was the bloke in charge at Cardiff during the few years Bristol got its act together and pissed all over Cardiff. And yet he's now , again, in charge. Isn't that like giving the captain of the Titanic a life saving role. To mix metaphors, it's like rewarding the person who was asleep at the wheel. I don't want to have a go Mr Horne personally, but some explanation I think is required
Bizarrely, Mr Horne , who I have met, was the bloke in charge at Cardiff during the few years Bristol got its act together and pissed all over Cardiff. And yet he's now , again, in charge. Isn't that like giving the captain of the Titanic a life saving role. To mix metaphors, it's like rewarding the person who was asleep at the wheel. I don't want to have a go Mr Horne personally, but some explanation I think is required
The welsh government was involved in appoin ting the ceo
Jon Horne ran CWL until 2007 when passenger numbers were at their peak of 2,111,148, the highest they've been.
He seems like a good choice to me.
Agreed. And its not as though he is a one man band without any assistance/board etc. Like the Council, it doesn't all fall with Phil Bale - there's the cabinet and, in the Council, the specialist employees.
I'm surprised they re-hired him, and you could argue that he had the opportunity to change things whilst in he had influence and failed to do so (e.g. Ryanair leaving, landing charges, lack of express buses) although on some level it was probably inevitable from 1997 onwards that Bristol would become the largest airport in the region as this was when much of the framework that allowed Bristol to dominate took place. Essentially before Jon Horne could do that much about it e.g. construction of new terminal (1997-2000) which was pivotal in attracting Go, and subsequently Easyjet.
It seems that CWL is flying in the right direction and that passenger numbers are taking off.
I expect to hit new heights in next two years
Getting back to two million is totaly dependent on persuading a low-cost carrier to base one or more aircraft at the airport. The airport are doing the right things to make that happen - so we'll see.
Personally I think the range of destinations is more important than the raw passenger numbers. Duplicating the Bristol offer is fine but even better would be get links to Middle East and American hub airports.