Archive Flybe at Cardiff Airport

[TheLocalYokel]

Yes time to start to pull away from the subsidy and let the routes stand on themselves. I think this could be a winner. There a a large number of flights there, so fingers crossed for more success leading into the summer next year.

Yes, next summer will be interesting when it comes to Flybe's plans for CWL. Any sort of expansion will require an additional based aircraft unless they run a few new routes using non-based machines, perhaps on a W-diagram. I don't think Flybe has many overseas bases unlike Ryanair and to a lesser extent easyJet.

 

[Em0866]

If they do expand for summer 2016 then I suspect they won't give much run in time and make their announcement when others have already booked their summer flights (going on past experience with Flybe announcements). I hope they can organise themselves better! I don't see which additional routes they could take on from CWL at the moment using the 195s. But who knows. Are you aware of any dates that they will release their summer schedule?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

If they do expand for summer 2016 then I suspect they won't give much run in time and make their announcement when others have already booked their summer flights (going on past experience with Flybe announcements). I hope they can organise themselves better! I don't see which additional routes they could take on from CWL at the moment using the 195s. But who knows. Are you aware of any dates that they will release their summer schedule?

I don't know when Flybe will release its summer 2016 programme I'm afraid. easyJet has only announced its own until 24 June next year. It's been doing this sort of thing each year recently which means Ryanair gets an advantage as it's published its own timetable for the whole of summer 2016.

As for possible new routes, I've looked at their destinations from MAN, BHX and SOU and there aren't many that jump out. Flybe doesn't seem to operate to eastern Europe where Poland is a huge market for a number of regional airports.

Having said this, I have to admit that MXP and MUC were huge surprises to me when announced from CWL.

Maybe somewhere like Nantes or Rennes might figure as a weekend destination. The one I'm surprised hasn't become a year-round route is Geneva. It could be accommodated at say 2 x weekly if MUC remains at 3 x weekly next summer. GVA is massive from BRS where for the past several years more passengers have travelled there annually from BRS (nearly 190,000 last year) than from any UK non-London airport including the likes of MAN, EDI and BHX, which means that without doubt a goodly number emanate from South Wales.

I would have also suggested Rome but Flybe doesn't appear to fly there from anywhere.

 

[juliet-fox-9]

Rome would be better as a Vueling route as it is one of their largest bases. It would be a fantastic addition for CWL.

 

[Em0866]

I am sure we'll get to know when their summer 2016 schedule will be released in due course. I hope it won't be too long though. I do hope that the ski flights will do well this winter. I wonder why they don't do a year round GVA flight seeing as they do so well from BRS. There must be an element of Welsh travellers on those flights.

I don't see where else Flybe could have new destinations to for summer next year. Maybe they'll increase on current routes, maybe an increase in the FAO flight is a possibility...that route has done well this year.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Rome would be better as a Vueling route as it is one of their largest bases. It would be a fantastic addition for CWL

.

A very good point. I was so blinkered on Flybe that I'd overlooked this.

 

[Aviador]

More to the point, is that so Cardiff doesn't have all it's eggs in one basket?

How is Vueling with respects to reliability compared with Flybe? I know Flybe hasn't got the greatest of records for punctuality and time-keeping nationally but I don't know what their record is like for the Cardiff base?

Great line-up of flights by Flybe in any case so fair play to them.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Great line-up of flights by Flybe in any case so fair play to them.

Credit should be given to the Wales Assembly Government. Having purchased the airport (and not everyone in Wales thought this was a good use of public money) they have also found a lot of money (around £13 million over three years) to encourage carriers to come in.

Without this money it's a safe bet to say that Flybe would not have returned having pulled put nearly two years ago because they said their routes from CWL (except BHD) were uneconomic.

Leaving aside the debate over public ownership and public subsidy of airports (I have my own views on this but this is not the time to expound them), I believe the task now is for these routes to show that they can operate on their own merit.

Several months ago a former non-executive director of the airport company described the airport as being out of intensive care but still on benefits. Everyone at CWL will want the benefits to cease as soon as possible and for the airport to earn its own keep.

The signs are now much more promising than at any time since before the recession.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Summer 2016

It's reported that Flybe will unveil it's programme tomorrow - across all its airports - with CWL aficionados wondering what might be in store.

Unless the airline adds to its CWL base, or uses aircraft from other bases (but I don't think it has any overseas bases and the UK routes seem to be pretty well covered), it's a job to see where any new routes would fit in without reductions in frequency (or axing of a route) from the existing timetable. There could be one or two W diagrams I suppose although I don't know if Flybe goes in for those.

The Wales Assembly Government will presumably make available the second of three tranches of its £13 million route fund next year so that might come into the equation.

 

[Em0866]

Hi Local. It will be interesting to see what Flybe have to offer for the Summer 2016 season, but I am not holding my breath for new routes. Flybe have only been at CWL in this larger capacity since early summer this year and they need time to establish the routes they have got, especially those routes that are not as popular as others. Tomorrow we'll see and we'll take it from there. That is my h'penny's worth!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Hello E m

It will be a surprise (to me anyway) if anything major turns up but, as I keep saying, aviation never ceases to produce the unexpected and unforeseen.

 

[Em0866]

That's a good point Local, stranger things have happened. I suspect there will some tweaking of what they have already, but nothing major. I shall be watching this space tomorrow (at least, when I get home from work)

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Summer 2016

It seems that the only new announcement is Verona to be flown weekly on Saturdays. I haven't checked the remainder of the timetable for next summer but presume it's broadly as this summer.

I wondered about a weekend leisure destination or two and had half a thought that it might be France: Rennes for example.

 

[Em0866]

Verona was a surprise for me, but a new route is always good. They used to have flights from CWL to VRN on a weekly basis with Thomson Lakes and Mountains, but then they stopped it. I can't remember which airline they used but it wasn't Thomson/Britannia. As far as I can see there have been reductions on the DUB and DUS flights and an increase in MXP, FAO and MUC. I suspected they would tweak but a bit of a surprise to reduce DUS back to Saturday only.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Thanks for that E m.

The last carrier to Verona was European Aviation Air Charter, an airline based at Bournemouth. It ended about ten years ago. Before that the carrier was the Spanish airline Futura. Flights were on Wednesdays.

DUS was probably a bit of a long shot other than for leisure, hence the return to Saturdays only. bmi regional's BRS-DUS service struggles a bit for passengers although their fare prices can be stratospheric.

Increases on MXP and MUC suggest that the airline has confidence in them. I must admit to being doubtful when the routes were first announced. I thought that E 195s were far too big for these routes.

 

[Em0866]

Now that you mention it I remember...typical eh!

I am glad that at least one of the German routes has increased. Maybe Munich is a better destination for the business and leisure traveller than Düsseldorf...or the E195 is just too big an aircraft for the route from CWL.

The increase in the other routes shows that BE do have confidence to get bums on seats. Remember it is still early days for BE at CWL so we may get another tweak or two between now and the beginning of the summer. I do hope that with the reduction of the frequency on some of the flights and increase in the others will mean an increase in pax numbers overall.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I expect passenger numbers to rise next year as the routes become established. I was surprised how well the likes of MUC and MXP did from the start.

 

[Em0866]

I agree with you. They are not the sorts of routes that I would think that would do so well as they are away from the "bucket and spade brigade" areas. It is heartening to know that CWL can attract other routes away from the Spanish costas

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Flybe route figures for November 2015

The CAA stats provide the data and I acknowledge South Wales Aviation Group to confirm the flights that operated in the month - there were a number of cancellations that I've taken into account.

Edinburgh 6663 passengers, ave load 66.6 load factor 56.5%

Glasgow 2416 57.5 48.7%

Jersey 682 37.9 32.1%

Cork 462 33 28.0%

Milan MXP 1209 46.5 39.4%

Paris CDG 3879 64.7 54.8%

Faro 1108 61.6 52.2%

Dusseldorf 729 30.4 25.8%

Munich 974 37.5 31.8%

Belfast City 3270 54.5 69.9%

Could not establish Dublin as it competes with EIR.

All flights on the 118-seat E 195 except BHD which is 78-seat Q 400.

This does suggest that the E 195 is too large for some of the routes, albeit November is always one of the worst months for many UK regional airports.

 

[juliet-fox-9]

Seeing this I have to repeat my opinion that this is really strange thinking from Flybe. Why not use all the E195's—not just some of them—to provide extra seats on routes where they're guaranteed to have good loads? No offence to CWL, DSA etc, but as long as the E195s remain on these routes they're not being economical and are probably not making much of a profit either.

With more and more routes formerly served by Dash 8's out of the larger airports being upgraded to jets, more Dash 8's should be freed up to be used at airports like CWL.