Cardiff Airport faces long haul to get passenger numbers back

Experienced the second-biggest fall in passenger numbers in the UK

Glamorgan Star news 07/05/2022

2 minutes read

By MARCUS STEAD.

New figures released by the Civil Aviation Authority reveal that Cardiff Airport experienced the second-biggest fall in passenger numbers in the UK during the pandemic.

The figures for 2021 show a 93% decrease on the number of people who used Cardiff Airport compared to 2019, behind only Southend, which fell by 95%.

Last year, Cardiff Airport served only 123,000 passengers, accounting for just 0.2% of UK air travellers, a tiny fraction of the 2.08 million who passed through the doors of neighbouring Bristol Airport.

Cardiff Airport was sold to the Welsh Government in 2013 for £52 million, and at the time it was the 20th busiest airport in the UK by passenger volume, but it has since fallen to 25th.

Passenger numbers at UK airports were on average 78% lower last year than before the pandemic, with only 64.4 million passengers arriving or departing, down from 296.9 million in 2019.

In March last year, the then-Economy and Transport Minister Ken Skates announced Cardiff Airport would receive a five-year recovery grant of £42.6 million and separately £42.6 million of the airport’s debts would be written off.

In total, more than £130 million of taxpayers’ money has been invested in the airport since the 2013 Welsh Government purchase, leading to calls from the Welsh Conservatives for them to cut their losses and sell it.

Before it fell into administration at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Flybe was Cardiff Airport’s largest airline, providing 27% of its passenger numbers in 2018.

In April, a revived Flybe took to the skies and by the summer it will offer 530 flights per week across 23 new routes, but the airline confirmed that it would not be reviving its base at Cardiff Airport.

Last month, low-cost Hungarian airline Wizz Air began operating routes from Cardiff to Alicante, Faro, Heraklion, Palma de Mallorca, Larnaca, Lanzarote and Tenerife, but it is doing so with only one A321 aircraft that has the capacity for 239 passengers, which led industry experts to question the feasibility of the venture, as when inevitable delays occur, it will have knock-on effects with crews running out of time.

Following the release of the passenger number figures, Cardiff Airport Chief Executive Spencer Binns said: “Looking at the latest figures to the end of March, we have recovered 12% of our rolling annual traffic. We are anticipating our busiest summer for three years and we expect to be 50% recovered [around 800,000 passengers] by the end of the year.

“That assumes no further restrictions on travel, or any significant drop in demand due to any geopolitical events or airline failures.”

“The people living in Wales who use the airport are indicating they have a high desire to travel again for holidays this year. There are nine airline partners currently making regular use of the airport’s facilities, including Wizz Air which recently opened a base in Wales, as well as TUI, Vueling, Ryanair and Loganair.

“The airport is expected to offer over 25 direct routes in 2022, as well as easy, one-stop global connections to over 165 cities available with KLM via its hub in Amsterdam.”

🌟 This article first appeared in the printed edition of the Glamorgan Star 05.05.22.