Cardiff: Route Development & Rumours

On paper the route didn’t do well. I’d put that down to price, frequency and timings. If we had something that replicated the Belfast route (price & frequency) it would probably do well.

Samdorob said:

On paper the route didn’t do well. I’d put that down to price, frequency and timings. If we had something that replicated the Belfast route (price & frequency) it would probably do well.

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The comparison with Belfast was stark.

Aer Lingus Regional have at least offered decent timings and competitive pricing compared to options at Bristol. Loganair, on the other hand, positioned itself as a more "premium" product with the pricing to match.

The irony is that the route was starting to find a market despite its lousy timings and was up by 9% over 2025 as opposed to falling by 20% during 2024, but this was as a result of more sale offers and less tinkering with the route and reducing capacity over the summer months in 2025 compared with 2024. Unfortunately the price point where customers showed interest was not at the level Loganair wanted to offer long-term. The same could be said of the short-lived Eastern Airways route to Paris Orly. Premium products just don't work from Cardiff where an abundance of low-cost options are available elsewhere.

Both Ryanair and Aer Lingus have demonstrated that there is a market at Cardiff provided its served the right way. Even if the timings are not great, customers will hold their noses provided the fares meet expectations. More people appear to be willing to to justify the inconvenience of a late departure for the sake of a £20 seat, far more difficult to do so when you're forking out £150+ each way.

The problem is there is only Aer Lingus and Ryanair who could reasibly offer such a route today. Its not unreasonable to assume that given the options at Bristol, a CWL-EDI route would not appear highly on either airlines' priority lists right now.

CAN&I said:

Both Ryanair and Aer Lingus have demonstrated that there is a market at Cardiff provided its served the right way. Even if the timings are not great, customers will hold their noses provided the fares meet expectations. More people appear to be willing to to justify the inconvenience of a late departure for the sake of a £20 seat, far more difficult to do so when you're forking out £150+ each way.

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This hits the nail on the head.

CWL was obviously way down the priority list of Loganair routes. Jonathan Hinkles publicly stated that CWL was just simply not bringing the money in to operate profitably for an airline like LG. But i'm not convinced they really gave it a proper go because they were so focused on cherry picking Flybe and eventually Blue Islands routes. Historically the numbers stack up on CWL-EDI but the timings LG offered simply weren't attractive when EZY offer so many options from BRS.
It seems EZY are likely trying to push LG out of SOU and they may struggle even more to compete on regional routes against the big boys. It could mean that they could be persuaded to come back as possible future route options diminish.
EI could be persuaded to operate some kind of W pattern such as BHD-CWL-EDI-CWL-BHD, but not sure how their financials are doing to risk it as well as aircraft availability.
If, and the usual big IF, Ryanair do add more or even base then a route like EDI would fit in well with their schedules and can be operated by the same crews on a double sector like CWL-ALC & EDI. It adds the complications of UK based registered aircraft though. It would give FR the opportunity to compete with EZY BRS-EDI.

I wonder if consolidation of regional flying with happen even further with an EI-R and Loganair merger/buyout.

Qatar Airways Doha route started in May 2018 but hadn't even been going 2 years before it was ended due to the pandemic. It did well in the summer months less so in winter. It's a shame they haven't returned. I doubt it will tbh but hope to be proved wrong or that in the future a different airline will take on a ME3 route.
Simply Flying Article

The article mentions a load factor of 59% but it also needs to be mentioned that popular destinations like Dubai weren't available atm due to dispute and blockade Qatar was under.

In the 20 months the route operated it saw 167,276 passengers use it.

Cardiff Airport’s growing connectivity recognised by Routes World

Well hopefully this leads to more routes... lol

Bit of a wishlist but I think it could be considered a realistic route target list (to me anyway 😆) for the next 5 years for Cardiff Airport. Doesn't necessarily mean they'd be achieved but just routes I hope we'll see and are being worked on.
New routes
Edinburgh
Paris (CDG)
Barcelona/Girona
New York (Newark)
Dubai
Krakow
Prague
Cork
Rome
Verona
Milan
Malta
Chania
Agadir
Varna
Cancun (limited one offs)
Montego Bay (limited one offs)

Growth on served routes
Dublin, Belfast City, Alicante and Malaga all to get up to 10 weekly departures.
Rhodes, Heraklion, Antalya, Dalaman, Dubrovnik, Lanzarote, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Enfidha, Faro all to get frequency increases.
Toronto to get a longer season by starting earlier and finishing later.
Amsterdam to grow either by the return of the 3rd daily flight or by bigger aircraft on the current flights.
Palma de Mallorca and Ibiza to get LCC options.

Airline targets
A 5th based for TUI with more adhoc long haul.
A base for Ryanair preferably 2 aircraft but 1 would suffice.
Attract Emirates, United Airlines, Air France and Easyjet (maybe not that realistic lol)

Passenger numbers wise i think the target needs to be to get back over the 1.5 million mark within the next 5 years.

Jerry said:

Bit of a wishlist but I think it could be considered a realistic route target list (to me anyway 😆) for the next 5 years for Cardiff Airport. Doesn't necessarily mean they'd be achieved but just routes I hope we'll see and are being worked on.
New routes
Edinburgh
Paris (CDG)
Barcelona/Girona
New York (Newark)
Dubai
Krakow
Prague
Cork
Rome
Verona
Milan
Malta
Chania
Agadir
Varna
Cancun (limited one offs)
Montego Bay (limited one offs)

Growth on served routes
Dublin, Belfast City, Alicante and Malaga all to get up to 10 weekly departures.
Rhodes, Heraklion, Antalya, Dalaman, Dubrovnik, Lanzarote, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Enfidha, Faro all to get frequency increases.
Toronto to get a longer season by starting earlier and finishing later.
Amsterdam to grow either by the return of the 3rd daily flight or by bigger aircraft on the current flights.
Palma de Mallorca and Ibiza to get LCC options.

Airline targets
A 5th based for TUI with more adhoc long haul.
A base for Ryanair preferably 2 aircraft but 1 would suffice.
Attract Emirates, United Airlines, Air France and Easyjet (maybe not that realistic lol)

Passenger numbers wise i think the target needs to be to get back over the 1.5 million mark within the next 5 years.

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Some interesting call outs there.

The current recovery plan has a passenger target of 2 million by March 2035 from a base of 870k as of March 2025. We're at 1.06 million 18 months into that plan which is up 190k / 22%. With something of a plateau next year (maybe even a slight drop if Vueling don't return), its difficult to see where the next stage of growth is coming from. Looking at the gap left to bridge thats an average growth of 110k passengers per annum over the next 8.5 years.

Ryanair and TUI are the only real contenders but even so it feels as if it would take a catalyst to jump start the next stage, possibly a definitive end to the current legal action by BRS, devolution and a cut of sorts to APD or BRS not being allowed to grow as quickly as airlines would like.

Asides the growth plan is focussed on economic connectivity and inbound investment and tourism. While your TUI targets would tick the box of terminal footfall and direct airport income, the wider economic benefit is outward when the WG want more inward benefit. With that in mind cities like Edinburgh, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Milan, Rome, Brussels, New York, Dubai, etc would offer a good blend alongside volume low cost to high capacity destinations such as Palma de Mallorca, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, Rhodes, Corfu and Heraklion. Conversely, not sure the city break market is worth competiing with BRS for at this stage unless its to draw European customers into Cardiff as a destination in itself.

Just our tuppence-worth of course...

That's a good, but slightly ambitious wishlist but achieveable in the long term.
I'm not convinced that New York or even Dubai will ever be seen at CWL. Long haul to the regions isn't what it used to be and any routes like that would require some level of funding and would likely be marginal. Toronto was a good scoop and should be the sole focus for long haul. I'm not sure putting that kind of money into those routes will see the return CWL needs. Passenger volume is what's needed.
Cork would be too much for Ryanair, and anything from Aer Lingus would dilute their own flights from BRS that operate at about 9x weekly.
For me over the next few years the focus routes should be:
EDI
PMI
BCN
MLA
PFO or LCA
RHO or CFU
FCO
MXP

A Ryanair base is what is needed, and hopefully isn't far off.
A based 737 doing at best 3 flights a day year round will give around 414k seats. Currently in 2026 Ryanair is offering 310k seats.

Bearing in mind any based aircraft will probably take over a fair amount of the flights currently operated, so if we say a based aircraft and some non-based flying will see about 550k seats, a 240k increase will only put CWL at about 1.3-1.5m passengers a year. Even a 2 aircraft base will mean 2m will still be difficult to achieve.

I'm still hopeful for a return by Vueling, but if they don't, at least it gives FR scope to increase those routes that they know work from CWL.

I was shocked at the amount and variety of destinations now available from SOU and BOH - i remember a time when these were minor airports in comparison to CWL. Not to mention you have Ryanair, Jet2 and TUI all at BOH.

cardiff12345 said:

I was shocked at the amount and variety of destinations now available from SOU and BOH - i remember a time when these were minor airports in comparison to CWL. Not to mention you have Ryanair, Jet2 and TUI all at BOH.

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More affluent area. Catchment plays a big part.

Jerry said:

A base for Ryanair preferably 2 aircraft but 1 would suffice.

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Has there ever been a recent scenario where Ryanair setup base with 1 aircraft? I honestly think they’re probably waiting for some sort of cash incentive to be put on the table.

Samdorob said:

Has there ever been a recent scenario where Ryanair setup base with 1 aircraft? I honestly think they’re probably waiting for some sort of cash incentive to be put on the table.

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Bournemouth was 1 aircraft for many years, only 2 recently post Covid

Foxlimayankee said:

That's a good, but slightly ambitious wishlist but achieveable in the long term.
I'm not convinced that New York or even Dubai will ever be seen at CWL. Long haul to the regions isn't what it used to be and any routes like that would require some level of funding and would likely be marginal. Toronto was a good scoop and should be the sole focus for long haul. I'm not sure putting that kind of money into those routes will see the return CWL needs. Passenger volume is what's needed.
Cork would be too much for Ryanair, and anything from Aer Lingus would dilute their own flights from BRS that operate at about 9x weekly.
For me over the next few years the focus routes should be:
EDI
PMI
BCN
MLA
PFO or LCA
RHO or CFU
FCO
MXP

A Ryanair base is what is needed, and hopefully isn't far off.
A based 737 doing at best 3 flights a day year round will give around 414k seats. Currently in 2026 Ryanair is offering 310k seats.

Bearing in mind any based aircraft will probably take over a fair amount of the flights currently operated, so if we say a based aircraft and some non-based flying will see about 550k seats, a 240k increase will only put CWL at about 1.3-1.5m passengers a year. Even a 2 aircraft base will mean 2m will still be difficult to achieve.

I'm still hopeful for a return by Vueling, but if they don't, at least it gives FR scope to increase those routes that they know work from CWL.

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A Ryanair base really needs to be the priority. New York and Dubai would be nice haves and would no doubt please the airport owners.
A 2 aircraft base from Ryanair would be an amazing achievement.

Samdorob said:

Has there ever been a recent scenario where Ryanair setup base with 1 aircraft? I honestly think they’re probably waiting for some sort of cash incentive to be put on the table.

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Bournemouth was for quite a while. I don't think Ryanair would be interested in a cash incentive. They'll want to be confident that Cardiff is sustainable as a base. They'll obviously want no fees etc but also I doubt the airport would give them a cash incentive either. The airport needs a sustainable base.

Moan incoming - apologies in advance as the moan is general and no offence intended toward anyone...

Wish we (the wider industry commentary "we" by the way, not directed at anyone in particular here) could move away from the idea that airports just blindly throw bags of cash around at airlines.

Firstly, Cardiff Airport is legally bound by UK subsidy law and the strict terms of its WG funding package, which explicitly prevents public funds from being handed over as direct monetary payments, incentives or subsidies to airlines.

The route development fund is provided to the airport operator to grow the passenger business. Any commercial levers the airport then uses (such as tapered landing fee discounts or marketing support) must be structured, commercially justified, and fully aligned with industry guidelines.

All airports are closely monitored by the UK CAA and the CMA. They have to operate under strict rules, meaning any commercial incentive scheme becomes entirely illegal if it is designed to unfairly restrict competition or distort the market under the Competition Act 1998.

Describing these sophisticated commercial frameworks as simply "throwing money", "incentives" or "subsidies" at airlines completely mischaracterises and misrepresents the highly regulated processes involved. That’s not nit-picking terminology or throwing smokescreens around either, it’s a matter of fact and reality that the aviation industry does not operate on the basis of a simplified analogy.

Moan over.