worked on the various new rail links in wales, cardiff airport would need completely new line, the cost would have been immense, the VoG line is juts a reopened frieght line.
new line costs millions upon millions and isn't really needed. what is is a direct decent regular non stop bus service with dedicated lanes.

Hi eric, could you expand on that please? Why is a turning or a redirection of the Vale of Glamorgan line through/around Porthkerry to the airport not possible? While I'm sure this would be expensive, it's surely much cheaper than an all new direct line. Is there a technical reason why it would not work?

Both Cardiff and Bristol airports are in completely the wrong locations with hopeless access issues which will be very costly to resolve. Take a lesson from Berlin - close the existing airports and build one new airport to concentrate and expand air traffic. This means east of Newport with direct access to the M4 and Great Western Railway - preferably with both upgraded. At the new Berlin Airport, it is anticipated that over 50% of travellers will access the airport by train.

We obsess with the status quo in the UK and need a good dose of vision and ambition.

Hello.Mr S, I am Mr A! So tell me, do you like the main railway stations in Berlin? Could we learn from the German funding model?

A great opportunity was lost when the idea of "Severnside" was scrapped. Then another chance was lost when Llanwern closed.

Like Bristol Filton? Next to the main S Wales - London railway line, with a line running through the site. Access to M5 trivial issue to solve, M4 not great but not bad either.

Problem solved.

Oh wait a minute Filton is being shutdown...

didn't filton used to take Concorde as well, surely that means it has a runway that is more than adequate for purpose. However, I am not aviation expert so i may be mistaken

I know the final flight of Concorde landed at Filton. I'm sure there was something about the A380 landing there in the news a couple of years back.

Another problem with Filton is that part of the site was sold off for housing in the 00's

Wales should be able to make its own decisions on airport development. By contrast, airport planning is a federal issue in Germany. Sadly, in the UK, airport policy is centralised in the interests of London, and the associated vested interests (e.g. British Airways), at the DfT. There would be no major challenge in privately funding an airport development east of Newport which has direct access to the M4 and GWR high speed rail line. Cardiff and Bristol airports would decimated by such a project, but so be it if this is what is best for the economic futures of Wales and the West of England. Some other posters on here talk of Filton which is unworkable - the better site would be east of Newport, Severnside being the most recent and serious proposal I am aware of.

Following the failures of Alistair Darlings consultation (The Future of Air Transport), a new consultation has been started by the Coalition in Westminster (Sustainable Framework for UK Aviation). Sadly, it seems that the WAG's recently announced Inquiry in Ports & Airports comes somewhat late to dovetail with this process and bring real influence to bear.

As regards the German funding model, what are you referring to specifically?

As regards Berlin's main stations, I am no expert, but the Germans are not fearful of building new infrastructure with a long term perspective and sense of strategy which is sadly lacking in Not So Great Britain!

Filton is unworkable because of planning decisions in the past 20 or so years (Bradley Stoke housing development).

In terms of links to infrastructure the location is 2nd to none in Wales and the Westcountry. M4, M49 and M5 very close to the site, site is right next door to the South Wales Main Line. In case people don't know have a look: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ll=51.52829,-2.587109&spn=0.083514,0.177155&t=m&z=13

Much like Severnside and Llanwern it ain't gonna happen...

The site is used by Airbus, not sure if the runway is owned by Airbus or just used via some agreement, but there's a substantial EADS presence at Filton that much I do know. I should know more really considering I work for a different part of EADS ! If anyone is that interested I can find out.

MisterS, I think that the Deutshes Bahn AG is wholly owned by the German Federal state, so the modern, extensive network and trains are relatively inexpensive to use when compared to the UK. Should Wales be more like Germany with regard to its's railways?

I believe the land around Filton (where a new airport might have been located) was until very recently owned by BAe.

BAe used to be part of the Airbus consortium but effectively sold up and pulled out a few years back.

That is why Airbus now have the aviation site at Filton. whilst BAe still own the land alongside.

BAe have since flogged off the lions share of the land (if not all of it) for housing etc because it is worth a mint and consequently the use of the Filton site as a future airport is already over.

That's the nub of it.

One can debate whether a privatised or nationalised railway is more efficient.

What is certain is that a complex and divided structure is significantly more costly than a simplified and unified one. Given this, it is not surprising that Germany has a dramatic lead on the UK when it comes to railways.

it jsut wasn't even an option, it cost millions juts to reopen the frieght line to passenger trains. You could of course stick a couple of miles of new track in to the airport and bypass Rhoose to the north, but it would cost millions still, the runway being in the way really would be a mjor impediment. So it is doable, but it was down to cost. I think WG did well to get that line reopned at all, and the ebbw line.

The X46 shuttle bus to the airport is to be scrapped from next month with the bus from Rhoose station to the airport still in doubt.

http://www.uk-airport-news.info/cardiff-airport-news-030312.html

A bit more comment on extending the rail line to the airport:

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/cardiffonline/cardiff-news/2012/03/11/plans-for-direct-cardiff-airport-rail-link-hatched-91466-30508893/

The main points seem to be that current work improving signalling at Cogan improve the likelyhood of this working, although currently there is no money identified to makeit work. It is estimated to cost £15m and be an extra mile and a half of track. There are no specific engineering problems but the business case has not been established. It could also be used for workers in the airport based enterprise zone and be a park and ride site for Cardiff.

While obviously £15 million is a lot of money, it doesn't seem that much if various groups got together to back it. Clearly nothing will happen for a number of years, but lets watch the debate unfold...

For a completely new stretch of railway, £15m is a bargain. The problem is there has to be something of worth at the end of the line.

Agree entirely. It's all a bit chicken and egg. For an airport rail link to work effectively the departures have to be frequent and the current passenger numbers just don't justify that.

I see no hope of any improvement under the current airport ownership. It's obvious Abertis have no real interest in developing the place. I suppose there's a slim chance that Vueling, as a Catalan airline, might be able to put some pressure on them.

Ok i know cardiff airport only took 1.4 million passengers last year. But i think we will certainly see a small increase this year. And as we move back out of resession passenger numbers will increase further.
There's a few projects planned at the moment that could really help increase passenger numbers. Firstly CBD increaseing buisness class travelers is the most important. A buiness man/woman may travel 100+ days a year. Also if the Severn Barrage was to be built ( And with london concerns over green targets esspecilly with scotland haveing an independence referendum in 2014 ) it would not only go a long way towards the goverments green targets but also it would reduce traveling distaces from Cornwall, Devon, dorset and somerset. Which in turn may increase cardiff airport passengers further.

As for a rail link maybe a deal can be stuck in conjunction with the london to swansea electrification.

£15 million is the same as the profit Arriva Trains Wales made in 2010-11 after receiving £150 million of WG subsidies. Now there's a system that really works for the people...

Return the Welsh rail franchise to public ownership and there's the £15 million for a new bit of track in one year.

Interesting reading recently that British Rail was subsidised to the tune of £1.5 billion per year (in current value terms). Since privatisation the subsidies are in excess of £4 billion. Why is Cameron so obsessed with the private sector when it is clear that it just doesn't work. Don't even get me started on utility companies...

why not mention the increase in capacity since privatisation or that pax numbers have doubled since privatisation. The fact that private ownership had to upgrade some stock and infrastructure that was (in part) in existence from before the second world war. given the destruction of europes rail network during that war, the continental nations had to start from scratch using moddern design and development pricniples. Instead as a nation we nationalised and did not invest. you reap what you sow.


Greening is intending to bring costs down - you do that by creating a better environment to operate in ensuring operators and network rail work together. Rather than looking towards a statist utopia, why not look at some of the worlds best rial networks, like Japan. why is the panacea for all the UKs ills a return to state ownership - ownership which is unproductive, inefficient, slow to change, slow to take up new technology and drags the nation down. perhaps we should all return to the 1970s and the three day week.



as for CWL, WG, CCC and VGC should just buy it. i've referenced ringway (M/cr) airport as being owned by 12 local councils, CWL is no different. Unfortunately we have a Labour led government who don't want to actually improve Wales as to do so would mean an increase in the electorates wealth whoich would mean that very same electorate would then switch vote to parties who protect personal wealth rather than take it off you and spend it on free prescriptions and other such nonsense

Originally Posted by george

£15 million is the same as the profit Arriva Trains Wales made in 2010-11 after receiving £150 million of WG subsidies. Now there's a system that really works for the people...

Return the Welsh rail franchise to public ownership and there's the £15 million for a new bit of track in one year.

Interesting reading recently that British Rail was subsidised to the tune of £1.5 billion per year (in current value terms). Since privatisation the subsidies are in excess of £4 billion. Why is Cameron so obsessed with the private sector when it is clear that it just doesn't work. Don't even get me started
on utility companies...



Did they 'work' when they were nationalised? Always seemed to be a hole into which government poured money - a bit like you're suggesting happens with the private sector.


@Jantra

Welcome Back!!

£15m is not a huge sum of money is it? Whay not go to CWL and say prepare a business plan which will show us how you will improve PAX including business travellers and we will build the railway thus giving you an advantage over Bristol.

It seems to me that CWL would be happy to see the railway being built as it would likely boost their profits without them doing jack squit for it. I bet they'd love to see WAG pump millions in if it was allowed and yet they seem disinterested in the whole airport business in fact - at least in Wales.

There must be some form of partnership if public money is to be used surey? There must be a leap of faith by CWL's owners for them to expect the public purse to support their private venture?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17365581

I've commented on this elsewhere today

But thats absolving the (private sector) owners of CWL of responsibility. Even without support from WAG (leaving aside issues of EU regulation/competition law and how much support WAG can legally give) the owners of CWL have still conspired to cede a huge and unassailable advantage to Bristol (when we were neck and neck not so long ago) and have managed to cut passenger numbers during the biggest expansion in air travel in history. Thats incompetence on a criminal scale.

Had WAG spent lots of money om propping up the profits of a business that the owners had little interest in you would have (rightly) had your arse in your hands about that. WAG shouldn't apply vast sums of public money to bail out the incompetence of public or private sector organisations. You'll probably say that they do already - and that may be right - but I think we are both agreed that they shouldn't.

You now seem to be advocating a takeover of CWL by public sector organisations in this thread which sits somewhat uneasily with what you have said in other threads.

There may not be a direct rail link to Cardiff airport yet, so there's clearly only one other obvious thing to do..... let's make it even more difficult to get to Bristol airport.

Two Sundays ago, visitors staying with me had to do the following to get to BRS :

Bus from the Bay to Central Station.
Train from Cardiff Central to Newport.
Replacement bus service from Newport to Bristol Parkway
Train from Brizzle Parkway to Brizzle Temple Meads
Bus from Temple Meads to BRS airport.

Howzatt for a disincentive to visit again!

far from it, it is saying that CWL can only grow in the right environment. WG have done nothing much to improve that environment. We often here that BRS is as difficult to get to, yet pax number are 4 or 5 times CWL pax numbers, so there must be a reason. BRS is a commercial and financial centre, it is an hour and a half from london by road and rail, it is on the junction of two main motorways.

perhaps WG need to look at the fact that CWL cannot therefore compete directly with BRS and start to look on how it can differentiate


I agree - in part. There is only so much that can be done without the right environment. Cardiff is not seen as a political or commercial centre and is thus going to fail to attract scheduled flights that comes with it. Until that image is changed, then we'll not see the market wanting scheduled flights into and out of Cardiff.


you mean like the £176m per annum subsidy to ATW

you are correct about that, but I have said how such a subsidy could be used in the ATW sense to improve infrastructure in the past. Owen et al have commented on the issues of redirecting the subisdy and allowing ATW to 'tax' journeys to cover, but my job is one of ideas, I'll leave the detail to the civil servants


see above re: ATW


I want the infrastrucutre in place: road, rail, links to major airports, a decent airport when you arrive.

the current owners (is it TBI - happy to be corrected) don't really care much for it and just see it as a cash cow. Hence WG can set up an arms length organisation like ringway that must be run on commericla lines but with the only political consideration being that it much be an airport that links Wales with each other and the rest of the world.

I am an advocate of public / private partnership where politicans and civil servants stay well away from making the commerical decisions because they are not qualified to make the best use of tax payers money - business leaders are.

the politicians can set the political aims, the civil servants can develop the framework to deliver those aims and the business leaders can set the corporate strategy to deliver the political goals. however, all parties need to understand their role and ensure they don't get involved in matters that don't concern them.

sadly our politicians and civil servants are just not interested in bettering Welsh infrastructure, they are more concerned with protecting their own little fiefdom's whilst preserving whatever little power and authority they possess.


not really, i'm an advocate of public / private partnership - see my comments about the German healthcare system. It can and does work. however, we have pavlovs dogs in the UK who when you mention the word 'private sector' in the context of public service delivery they become all apoplectic with rage.
such individuals prefer poor service provided entirely by the state rather than exemplary service provded by the private sector within a public sector framework

how about having to listen to your osmands LPs over an over




NB for the younger lot amongst you, an LP is an early form of mp3 music file

No need to get the gramaphone out Jantra, they're coming sooner than you think......

http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/event/360046C6C31762EF


What about a forum night out

you couldn't make it up

welsh public sector bodies using public money to fine other public sector bodies depriving them of public money. people wonder why I question the productivity of the public sector.

the wheels on the bus go round and round.....

as Gabrielle once said

'dreams can come true'

Jantra - changing Cardiff's image as a political/commercial centre and/or competing with Bristol in an economic sense is akin to turning the QE2 around. Having said that Cardiff's profile has never been higher, we are closer to Bristol in economic terms than in previous decades and Cardiff has more political clout now than it ever has whih sort of makes it a bitter pill to swallow that BRS is streets ahead.

There are cogent factors why BRS is ahead of CWL that can't be laid at the door of the management of CWL (it's owned by Albertis by the way). A bigger catchment area and more affluence in the immediate area. I've no doubt that paying £6 to get into Wales puts people off as well. Maybe WAG have got a hand to play here in creating wealth and therefore creating a public that fly more often and/or a business community that requires contact with Europe and beyond.

But that still doesn't explain why BRS has 4 times more passengers than CWL 9it aint 4 times or the size or 4 times more affluent) or why 55% of the flying public in south Wales fly from somewhere other than CWL. It doesn't explain why previously piddly little airports like Newcastle, Southend, Newquay, Bournemouth etc etc have grown hugely whilst CWL has in fact contracted.

Based on the current management WAG could have built a railway that stopped in the departure lounge and it would have made minimal difference to passenger numbers. The fact is that when the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet came sniffing the management at CWL were too greedy/couldn't be arsed and they went to Bristol instead. BRS has multiple destinations whilst CWL flies almost exclusively to the Costa's. The rest is history.

I'm not trying to absolve WAG from their responsibility to improve infrastructure in Wales or their economic malpractice but the lions share of blame lies - in my view - with CWL's owners who simply see CWL as a side project which only needs to break even. Carwyn Jones was right to give them a public kicking and Andrew RT Davies is an absolute tit to claim this was a kick in the teeth for hard working staff etc. This playing to the gallery is utterly facile.

I'd love to see a consortium of public/private sector organisations take CWL over, get the airline industries top boys involved and work out a strategy that would see CWL complement and compete with the offer at BRS. But ultimately would Albertis sell?

thats a very good overview Karl. I think our prayers have been answered, certainly when you understand flyforbeans are back on the scene.

my angst is born out of frustration. I certainly do believe that we could achieve so much more in Wales. I think the Welsh electorate's obsession with voting red is what is keeping Wales back. We definitely need politicians who understand if they fail they will be removed from power. As it stands, there is no real incentive for WG to progress Wales. its all talk and as you say is playing to the gallery.

what we need is labour to lose power for at least one assembly session. This isn't born from anti labour position, but one that understands assumed power brings complacency to politics. By having competition our politicians would have to raise their game.

Until such time as Labour lose power in the NAW then I suspect we are not going to get the political ambition that we need to push us forward.

consider the scottish (political) landscape...that parliament has had a change of power from one party to a loose coalition to another party. It is clear that political parties need to deliver in Scotland otherwise there will be a change. Sadly i feel our electorate here in Wales is so anti England rather than pro wales that they see only Labour as being the party that can protect the Welsh from the litte englander (conservative) political onslaught.

The conservatives are making in roads into Wales - after years in the wilderness, i doubt they woulfd turn their backs on Welsh needs so readily.

i love the private sector proponenet moaning about the public sector on a forum in what would be work hours.....................

FWIW I am my own boss

There's a video i can't find now of passengers at cardiff international. And all the passengers said pretty much the same thing.
They always check cardiff for the flights first but find while they can gain a flight to there destination, there maybe only 3 flights a week. And the flight is not at the time they were looking for. So customers then try bristol or further afield.
So i looked up the flights between 6am and 12am this morning. And what i found was cardiff had 19 fights departures during this time 11 of which were to Amsterdam.
However Bristol has 43 departures and while Amsterdam still dominates with 10 flights bristol does have 4 flights to Brussels and 3 to paris.
But what's really intresting is that cardiff has no flights at all between 12pm and 3pm and so between 12pm and 6pm bristol has 45 flights but cardiff has only 10.

So i figured iv'e gone this far lets finnish the day.
There is a further 6 departures from cardiff from bristol there was a further 8 flights.
Ok so now i'm going to compare the 2 airports departures
Cardiff 19+10+6=35
Bristol 43+45+8=96
So bristol has 2.75 times as many flights today possibly/partly due to cardiff airport haveing a Siesta
Then i found this:
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/80/airport_data/2010Annual/Table_04_2_Air_Transport_Movements_2000_2010.pdf

cardiff had a 16% reduction in flights in 2010 compared to 2009. And cardiff had 17 thousand flights in 2010. Where as Bristol did not have a drop in flights and had 54 thousand flights which is clearly more then 3 times the flights cardiff offers. Add to that since then the loss of 1500 flights a year when Bmibaby ceased it's flights from Cardiff and it's no wonder cardiff international is low on passengers.

So i decided to calculate how many passengers both airports ( based on 2010 ) had per flight on average.
In 2010 Bristol had 54000 flights and 5,723,000 passengers which is just under 106 passengers per flight.
where as cardiff had 17000 flights and 1,398,000 passengers which is just over 82 passengers per flight.

So cardiff needs to increase passenger numbers per flight by about 24% which then should incourage carrier's to bring more services. More services would mean more customers and so on.

Jefferson,

Cardiff does not have 11 flights to Amsterdam between 6am and midday. Airport departure boards list out a destination multiple times when a flight is code shared,

For example, the following would be 1 aircraft departing and not 3.

KL1069 Amsterdam 21:35
AF8349 Amsterdam 21:35
AZ3802 Amsterdam 21:35

If you revisit the exercise tomorrow and take out these multiple entries, you will see the BRS has a far higher multiple of flights (over CWL than even the 2.75 that you state) because the majority of the flights from BRS are not code shared (ie Easyjet & Ryanair).

Do the maths again tomorrow if you get the time and let us know the results if you would.

my guess is 6 or 7

I wont be at all surprised if it is at least 5.

Hang on a minute though - tomorrow might be a very unrepresentative day to compare because there will be additional one-off charter flights from France for the Six Nations thus distorting the usual figures.

Why would anyone want a rail link!?:

http://www.stopthespur.org/

From the above link, the plan:

I had always imagined the airport link would see trains calling at Barry, then going to the airport and then going back down the spur and continuing along the coast line to Rhoose and eventually Bridgend, allowing better connections to the airport from swansea. This anti-spur website seems to suggest trains would terminate at the airport and then return towards cardiff. If that's the case they could, for example, be an extra stop at the end of routes that currently terminate in Cardiff, the Portsmouth Harbour route for instance (also calls at Bristol and Bath). Leaving Cardiff central and calling at Barry then Cardiff Airport.

I accept that there are perfectly legitimate reasons why the rail link will never/shouldn't go ahead, but still:

Sometimes I play 'Fantasy Airports' in my head, and dream of a new airport on the land between Cardiff and Newport, called Cardiff Newport International or somesuch...

But anyway, back to reality. I think the rail spur is a good idea. CWL's location is far from ideal and anything that improves accessibility will help. Opponents of the rail spur claim that it's the lack of flights/airlines/destinations from the airport that's the real problem (and indeed it is), but it shouldn't take a genius to work out that this problem is related to its lack of connectivity on the ground. If more passengers could get to the airport more easily, then that would result in more routes to serve them.

For an airport that's supposed to serve not just Cardiff but all of South Wales, I find it staggering that there are no direct bus services to the airport from Swansea or Newport. Nor is there a direct train from those cities to the Rhoose station, which shouldn't be hard to achieve - the tracks are all there.

If it's any consolation, check out the reviews of other small UK airports on the airport-rating website Skytrax - they fare no better. Bristol Airport in particular comes in for a right pasting...

A rail link might make it better for S. Wales but that's about it.

Is someone going to travel by train from Bristol, Gloucester or Swindon to Cardiff? Bristol - no; Gloucester - perhaps, but it'd take the same time to get to Birmingham International; Swindon - no, Bristol would be quicker to get to, Heathrow would be roughly the same journey time as Cardiff (even with the railair buses).

If rumours are true about making public sector pay match private sector pay, then there will be a lot of public sector workers in S. Wales with less disposable income. So unless Cardiff has really cheap airlines people may decide Bristol is still cheaper.

I think the owners of the airport also play a bit of that as well.According to their website.

"Cardiff currently has about 1.6 million passengers annually.

As a gateway linking Wales to the rest of the world – with over 50 direct routes to the UK, continental Europe, USA and Canada – it is often possible to complete return business trip in a single day."

http://www.abertisairports.com/fichaCardiff.php

The bit they don't mention is that out of those 50 routes, well over 30 are seasonal charters which fly a few times a year to such business metropolises as Faliraki and Lapland.

So, apart from the Nimby angle (which is fair enough) and the cost of £15 million, why would anyone object to this? I am sure that it would attract passengers and eventually extra routes. Bel Ludovic asked why there are no trains to the airport from Swansea? The answer is almost certainly cost and line capacity but hold on, chickens, eggs etc. Someone once said "If you build it, they will come". Hugh Hefner listened to that advice and built the Orgasmatron at his Playboy Mansion. He has never looked back. We in Wales should do likewise.

OK, but even if accessibility is improved 'just' for South Wales and not for south-west England, that's surely not to be sniffed at? Most of Wales's population lives in the south - that must be, what, 1.5-2 million people? I don't know the exact number (self-evidently) but it's still a potentially large market, even without attracting custom from Gloucestershire and Somerset.

I can understand why there isn't a direct bus or train from Newport given that it's on the other side of Cardiff from the airport, but seriously, Swansea? As the crow flies, it's pretty close to the airport - and it is Wales's second-largest city, after all.