Cardiff airport

Within a week of the First Minister's vision that Cardiff airport's future lies in long haul travel we discover that Wales isn't going to get APD devolved (hence the fiscal reasoning for making such a claim appears to be rather illjudged). Scotland however, which is already blessed with 3 airports (Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen) which are each individually far busier than our one terminally ill airport is going to get APD devolved! Doubles all round to the negotiators batting at the top table for Wales!

Whilst I'm not in favour in principle of Cardiff having an unfair competitive advantage over Bristol, it is rather embarassing that even this strategy has unravelled within such a short period of time.

I reckon that (despite what they claim about the airport being profitable), the creative accountants at WG are going to have their work cut out to prove that Cardiff airport is not going to be a loss maker for the public purse as time goes by. The £50 million quid that they paid for it looks like an increasingly poor investment at the moment.

Still , look on the bright side, Ryanair have introduced a weekly service to Tenerife - so let's keep spinning that one good news story to death.

To be fair to WG I imagine the question of APD is back on the table following the Smith Commision proposals for Scotland.

A lot of the politics of devolution at the moment involves not giving anything to Wales that Scotland doesn't already have. Cardiff Bay wasn't going to get control of APD while Holyrood didn't have it. With Scotland getting control of APD the position for Walers could change. We'll know on March 1st when the next set of proposals on devolution are announced.

As to whether buying the airport turns out to be a good or a bad investment time will tell. It really is far to early to say.

Still , look on the bright side, Ryanair have introduced a weekly service to Tenerife - so let's keep spinning that one good news story to death.

I heard either Carwyn the stupid say how we could get more Ryanair plans based here, citing the Tenerife example, which he obviously didn't quiet understand! Ahh yes we have a 737-800 sitting on the tarmac all week at Cardiff and lets fly to Tenerife once a week.

Maybe we could let someone from Ryanair take control of the WAG and let Carwyn serve the drinks on the planes (if he is qualified).

They want to devolve more powers to this lot?

Still , look on the bright side, Ryanair have introduced a weekly service to Tenerife - so let's keep spinning that one good news story to death.

I heard either Carwyn the stupid say how we could get more Ryanair plans based here, citing the Tenerife example, which he obviously didn't quiet understand! Ahh yes we have a 737-800 sitting on the tarmac all week at Cardiff and lets fly to Tenerife once a week.

Maybe we could let someone from Ryanair take control of the WAG and let Carwyn serve the drinks on the planes (if he is qualified).

They want to devolve more powers to this lot?

Your anti-devolution and anti Welsh language rants are getting a bit boring. Would you care to provide a link to the Carwyn Jones quote or did you just make it up?

Your anti-devolution and anti Welsh language rants are getting a bit boring.......

I don't necessarily agree with everything Zach posts but, who knows, perhaps if you removed the blinkers you might just see another point of view other than your own?

Your anti-devolution and anti Welsh language rants are getting a bit boring.......

I don't necessarily agree with everything Zach posts but, who knows, perhaps if you removed the blinkers you might just see another point of view other than your own?

quite...devolution hasn't been a roaring success for Wales, no matter what some may like to think. I shudder to think what our finances will be like when income tax et al is devolved. I imagine our block grant under Barnett will shrink considerably more than the amount of devolved taxes that we will raise. Welsh Labour can continue to blame Westminster for all of ours ills and Wales will perpetually remain a de facto single party state falling further and further behind the UK.

Thankfully some matters aren't fully devolved and Westminster is ensuring that we see some serious investment in Wales vis a vis electrification.

I'm not sure what you are all expecting regarding the airport.

It seemed to me that there was a choice between a slow and possibly terminal decline under Albertis who really didn't give a monkeys or an intervention of some sort. If there was no intervention by WG (who appeared to be the only option) it would have been a tacit acceptance that Wales was not able to support an airport. Sending out that message would have been catastrophic. I think hindsight shows that the price was inflated but there we are.

Now we have an airport that suffers all of the problems that it did before - poor transport links, poor location, poor catchment area - but at least it's owned by an organisation that has a vested interest in trying to improve it.

The problem is that the levers to improve it - devolution of APD, big slush fund to improve access and infrastructure etc are not there. Any improvement must be incremental. Did anyone think otherwise? Bristol is too close and too successful to allow a quick and large upswing in fortunes which I think CJ recognises hence the talk about long haul. I don't blame him for trying to talk up CWL's prospects whilst at the same time being circumspect as literally there is nothing else he can do.

Out of interest what - given the resources available - does everyone think the WG should have done to improve the airport to improve PAX numbers in the time it has been in their ownership?

successful airports have routes, routes and more routes. you don't need shiny bendy buses every fives minutes leaving from the nearest city. build it and they will come - so to speak.

I think most people are fed up with WG as frankly they fiddled whilst Rome burned. Most accept that unless we have serious investment in new sustainable routes that people want to use then CWL is a busted flush. My anger is not what WG are doing now, but what were they doing in 1999 when BRS started to forge ahead of CWL? That's right, they were patting themselves on the back about their 'clear red water' policies that sent Wales on a downward spiral of economic stagnation and social decline.

My anger is not what WG are doing now, but what were they doing in 1999 when BRS started to forge ahead of CWL?

Let me answer your rhetorical question


Answer : Sweet FA

The WG don't even use the airport on official business most of the time:

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/cardiff-airport-used-welsh-government-8146619

Eh? Why hold WAG responsible for what was happening in a privately owned airport in 1999 when WAG as a body had barely come into existence? Aren't the real villains of the piece the private sector organisation(s) who were happy to see the airport tick over whilst they protected their other investments?

As for routes - how do WG attract new routes to CWL? I'm asking because I don't know. Without APD devolved and a big war chest to spend what can they do that they aren't doing at the moment? How can they get around rules regarding govt subsidies?