I guess the suggestion is that people travelling to the airport from their home city might be dropped off by a friend or relative, or drive and park up, whereas people who land in a foreign country are more likely to have to fend for themselves on public transport.

Some new flights announced.

Barbados and Dusseldorf

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/first-ever-cardiff-airport-barbados-6424494

Edit : Actually, wasn't the Dusseldorf one already announced ? Hopefully it'll end up being more than once a week as it's clearly just aimed at people going on holiday for a week at the moment.

Guys, 'AIRPORTS OF THE WORLD' magazine on sale today has Cardiff Airport as it's main feature, there's a 5 page special on the airport....good peice actually, it's in all WHSMITH's....

The Dragon awakes!



Do you reckon they needed to photoshop that image to get three planes at the airport at the same time!?!

Looks good though.

Perhaps they used Flight simulator

Let's hope this city never has flights to Malaysia.

Wonder how much the assembly paid the magazine for front cover! HA

Don't suppose anybody would want to scan the article to put on 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

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/cardiff-airport-secures-new-airline-6433899

yeah, i was thinking that exactly!

flew in to Cardiff from Lyon direct yesterday - everything went well on time and the luggage was quick as was going throught the automatic customs. They have certainly spruced up the arrivals air side - looking good lets hope more passangers will see it !

Excellent news that City Jet are taking over FlyBe flights (and adding some new ones). The only thing that worries me slightly is that AirFrance have just announced the sale of City Jet to some German company. I dont know if this will affect the SkyTeam status?

I wonder if we could see a Cardiff to London City connection???

I agree that there would only be limited benefit for direct CWL-LCY flights but I was thinking more of the onward connections using LCY as a hub to City Jet destinations worldwide.

On the negative side, I just realised that Paris flights are to Orly and not CDG. This does not make much difference for direct flights to Paris, but it does limit opportunities to connect to long distance flights.

Ryanair return - http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/boost-cardiff-airport-low-cost-carrier-7121892

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-27420572

It's a start guys, but I think it's safe to say the airport is all the better for entering public ownership The rebound begins

I am sure they got a very good deal to be at Cardiff and I wonder how any (possible) further expansion could affect there Bristol base.

Such disappointing news.

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.

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.

Could you say a bit more about that? Why is ryanair better suited to cardiff than easyjet?

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.

Getting passenger numbers to take off is top priority for Cardiff Airport boss

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/getting-passenger-numbers-take-top-7132537

Looking at their website the flight is available from November for about £40 each way.

You'd struggle to get to London for less than that most of the time.

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_cardiff_giant

Does Ryanair coming to Cardiff mean that Cardiff will be renamed to London Cardiff like London Oxford etc?

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

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.

But its precisely during that period that Bristol pissed over Cardiff......

Just his luck that the airport did even worse without him.

Because of the march Bristol had stolen when he was at the Cardiff wheel.

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