Flights to Spain from Cardiff Airport to increase following demand

“There is no chance of easyJet flying from Cardiff whilst they are at Bristol and they are hardly likely to up sticks and move to a much less promising base.

The South Wales/West of England joint catchment is much smaller than the ones mentioned in the previous post and easyJet's Bristol base is the airline's biggest outside London and only Milan overseas is larger.

The Bristol core catchment is much larger and more prosperous than the Cardiff one hence Bristol Airport has hardly been affected by the recession in terms of passenger numbers (still around six million a year as it was in 2008 when the recession began) whilst Cardiff has dipped from two million a year to one million.

When the recession finally begins to ease Cardiff will begin to grow again but even at its height of two million passengers a year in 2007 and 2008 it was still losing 700,000 Wales originating and terminating passengers to Bristol because some routes will work from Bristol but not from Cardiff, even in the better economic times. The last time Cardiff handled more passengers in a year than Bristol was 1986 when both airpoprts were mainly charter airports to the sun. Since then the gap has gradually widened every year.

Cardiff has a mountain to climb but it will begin to start the climb as market conditions improve though the First Minister's boast of catching then overtaking Bristol is a nonsensical one. It's like Bristol Airport saying they will catch up Manchester Airport one day.”

“Absolutely. Hope the WG will work to get Easyjet there too. Some people say Cardiff can't support Easyjet since they fly from Bristol but look at Liverpool/Manchester, Glasgow/Edinburgh/Newcastle, Gatwick/Stanstead. The catchment area is far bigger than people realise.”

“Cardiff Airport: Swiss carrier Helvetic stops Wales flights - news on BBC.
http://tinyurl.com/d9d5dms

SWEP - how about the airlines reducing service - half a story again - how am I not surprised.”

“Having flown Vueling twice from Cardiff last year I was very impressed. Decent aircraft with more leg room than most, and generous baggage allowance. I just hope that the welsh public will rally to support it for, at the end of the day ,it is up to us to make Cardiff Airport succeed. More passengers simply means more and better flights. And vice versa of course.”

“Great news. Just need to get First Greyhound to go to Cardiff Airport now. Would rather that than changing trains at Bridgend.”