This week, just nine months after launching routes from Cardiff Airport, budget airline Wizz Air officially withdrew from the Barry base. The Hungarian-owned airline launched a dedicated operation with 40 cabin and pilot-related crew at the Welsh Government-owned airport in April 2022.
When it first launched owners spoke of their hopes of eventually introducing new routes from the Welsh base, but just three months later cancelled the majority of its services for six-months, before eventually announcing it was completely withdrawing from the airport citing "the challenging macro-economic environment and high operational costs".
This is undoubtedly a huge blow for the airport, already struggling with falling passenger numbers and recovering from the covid pandemic which stifled overseas travel. The airport is struggling so much that earlier this year it's own CEO admitted it was a "long way" from being profitable.
Read more: Wizz Air is pulling out of Cardiff Airport
But where and how did it all go so wrong? After all, it has had millions of taxpayers money pumped into it, new routes introduced (albeit some then withdrawn), debts written off, and yet its recovery still lags behind other major UK airports as they recover from Coronavirus.
The Rhoose-based airport, which is owned by the Welsh Government but operated by an at arm’s length commercial company, carried just over 122,000 passengers in July last year. That was 55% of the 208,000 passengers who passed through the airport in July 2019 before the pandemic. In comparison, the UK's three biggest airports Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester all carried around 81 or 82% of the passenger numbers they saw in 2019.
The 'worst ever crisis' of Coronavirus
Cardiff Airport was one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic after an 93% drop in passenger numbers, figures by the Civil Aviation Authority in 2021 showed. The data showed that UK airports lost 223 million passengers in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to figures by the Civil Aviation Authority. Of this, travel numbers for Cardiff Airport dropped from 1,656,085 in 2019 to 219,984 in 2020.
In 2021, Cardiff served just 123,000 passengers. That compares to 2.08m for Bristol, 6.2m for Gatwick and 19.3m for Heathrow. The Welsh-Government-owned airport was also smaller than Exeter, Norwich and Bournemouth - and was less than half the size of Southampton. Cardiff served just 0.2% of UK air travellers.
The most recently available figures show that in the year to October 2022, the Welsh airport had recovered to handle 811,000 passengers. But this compares to 7.5m for Bristol, 30m for Gatwick and 56m for Heathrow. Cardiff, in the autumn, had recovered to be larger than Bournemouth and Exeter, but whether this will be sustained without Wizz Air is not clear.
Cardiff Airport is usually compared (unfavourably) to Bristol's. The neighbouring airstrip was a comparable size in the early 90s but is now many times bigger. But Bristol is not the only one. As this chart below shows, airports like Liverpool and Leeds Bradford have all taken off from a similar point in the 1990s. Instead Cardiff's trajectory is similar to airports like Southampton or Doncaster (which only opened in 2005).
Use this customisable chart to compare Cardiff to any other large UK airport
The airport has failed to progress and has arguably fallen back since it was bought by the Welsh Government in 2013 for £52m, and then bailed out with £85m in a grant and debt write off during the pandemic in March 2021 . In 2010, Cardiff was the 20th biggest airport in the UK by passenger volume. By 2021, it had fallen to 25th. It had recovered to 20th in October last year. But that was before Wizz Air's decision.
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Tim Alderslade, chief executive of trade association Airlines UK, said in April 2022 that "we can't lose sight of the fact the sector has been through its worst ever crisis and it will take several years to deal with the debt airlines had to take on to make it through the pandemic with no passengers."
The challenge to keep carriers
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. At the time of the airline's collapse Cardiff Airport said that Flybe flights accounted for 41% of total traffic for the rolling year to date.
Leading travel journalist Simon Calder said: "It's a terrible day for the airport. It was way too dependent on the one airline. Which is a problem for many airports". The collapse came just days after the airport asked the Welsh Government for a further £6.8m, just one year after they approved a loan of £21.2m, and only a year after the collapse of Thomas Cook which saw the already thin list of destinations offered by the airport decrease further.
It was hoped that other airlines such as Stobart Air and Wizz Air would plug the black hole left by FlyBe's departure, but nearly three years on and this looks unlikely. Stobart Air announced its collapse in June 2021 just weeks after announcing two new routes from the Welsh Airport. The Irish air operator which runs Aer Lingus' regional services said it was terminating its franchise agreement with the airline and was in the process of appointing a liquidator.
As well as this, Qatar Airways, who launched its route from Cardiff to Doha in 2018 before suspending it due to Covid, has yet to restart. Appearing in front of the Senedd's Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee Cardiff Airport bosses said Qatar Airlines do not expect flights to resume from Cardiff before 2023-24.
As a result, the Wizz Air announcement, which the Welsh Government and Cardiff Airport came as a surprise has undoubtedly been the tip of the iceberg for the airport already struggling to attract and keep - sometimes through no fault of their own - flight operators at the base.
Speaking of scrapping the base in Cardiff, Wizz Air UK managing director Marion Geoffroy told Travel Weekly: “The challenging macro-economic environment and high operational costs including fuel mean that unfortunately we are unable to continue operating from Cardiff Airport. We sincerely apologise to our customers in Wales and the south west of England for the disruption and inconvenience that this will cause.
“Our priority now is to ensure that all affected customers are contacted directly with clear advice on their options, and to look after our Cardiff based colleagues and crew. Wizz Air continues to offer low fares from eight other UK airports, including Bristol, Birmingham, London Gatwick, and London Luton."
Prior to the Wizz decision Cardiff Airport was on track to hit its target of seeing passenger numbers recovered to 50% of pre-Covid levels at the end of its current financial year - to the end of March 2023. That would give an annualised passenger number of around 750,000. Latest figures from the Civil Aviation Authority show that in October the Rhoose-based airport handled more than 73,000 passengers, with a rolling year figure of just over 810,000.
In a statement Cardiff Airport said: “We are deeply disappointed to hear that Wizz Air has decided to cease their operations at Cardiff Airport. It is regrettable that Wizz Air has cited the economic climate as its reasons for withdrawing its operations out of Cardiff.
"There have been positive booking trends and very strong passenger demand to travel from Cardiff in 2022 and current booking trends for 2023 remains similar. We have been working closely with the airline since 2020 and their latest indications to us last week, were that bookings for this summer are ahead of this time last year, so we see their decision as surprising.
"Our thoughts are with our customers who are impacted by this news and now face disruption to their travel plans for this year, along with our friends and colleagues that are employed by Wizz Air based at Cardiff.
"Four of our existing airlines are still planning operations from Cardiff to all the destinations that Wizz were selling tickets to. We encourage those customers who had booked on Wizz this year to consider an alternative choice to fly to their chosen destinations from Cardiff with TUI, Vueling Ryanair and KLM.
"We will continue our conversations with other airlines and partners to encourage that they offer more choice to fly from Cardiff at cost effective prices for our customers. Passengers with any queries regarding Wizz Air flights from Cardiff should contact the airline."
The problem 60 miles away
In 2021, Cardiff Airport served just 123,000 passengers. When we asked people why they don't use it most people mentioned the same thing, Bristol. Sitting some 60 miles away Bristol Airport had 2.08m passengers in the same period.
But what exactly is drawing people to Bristol over Cardiff? One reader seemed to sum up the mood, "Would love to use Cardiff more but very few routes and more expensive."
In 2019, the Welsh Government claimed the UK Government was blocking plans that could make flights from Cardiff Airport cheaper. Applications to remove air passenger duty – worth £26 per return journey – from nine routes have been withheld, it is claimed.
At the time, the applications had to be approved by the European Commission via the UK Government before they can come into fruition. Applications for a range of routes had been submitted by the Welsh Government to the UK Government’s Department for Transport.
“Unfortunately, the UK government is withholding our applications without satisfactory explanation,” a Welsh Government spokeswoman told the BBC at the time.
Air passenger duty is an additional charge added to flights departing from a UK airport that have an authorised weight of 5.7 tonnes or more than twenty seats. By bringing flight prices down, the government hoped to attract more passengers to Cardiff Airport.
Air passenger duty has been a contentious issue for the Welsh Government in recent years. While it has been devolved in part to Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales is still controlled by the UK Government. The Welsh Government has claimed that devolving the charge will help Cardiff Airport attract more long haul flights and draw more airlines to the airport. The UK Parliament’s Welsh Affairs Committee had recommended the devolution of the tax to Wales by 2021.
As well as the cost, being a bigger airport, Bristol can simply offer more routes from more operators, which will in turn drive costs and demand.
'A bottomless pit for taxpayers' cash
In Welsh Government Plenary in the Senedd on January 11 2023, a day after Wizz Air's announcement, Lee Waters Ms the Deputy Minister for Climate change fought off questions about the purpose and future of Cardiff Airport in the wake of the departure. Referencing the fact the airport is partly government owned, Jane Dodds of the Lib Dems referenced it as a 'bottomless pit for taxpayers' cash.
In 2021 it was announced that Cardiff Airport was worth just £15m after a series of debts were written off – less than a third of what the Welsh Government paid for it eight years previously. It was also announced that the Airport was to be given up to £42.6m of taxpayers' cash with another £42.6m it owes to the Welsh Government being written off.
The Welsh Government paid £52m for the airport in 2013 and has since purchased additional equity totalling £9.3m. Yet now it is valued at just £15m. During an economy, skills, and infrastructure committee meeting in 2021, Mr Waters said without the bail out the airport faced liquidation.
"We had three options. We could do nothing which would see the airport go into voluntary liquidation. Let's just be very clear on that – if we didn't take action the airport would have gone bust, it would have closed. We know that there are 2,400 roughly aviation-related jobs that would have been directly impacted by that and in total over 5,000 indirect jobs related to the airport.
"That would have meant a loss to the Welsh taxpayer of around £115m. The second option would have been a 'do minimum' option which would have been a 12 months £10m loan but that would have resulted in an impairment of our investment again at a similar [level] of £115m.
"And then we looked at rescue and restructure and that turned out to be the best value. That's a rescue grant of £42.6m and a write down in the loan of a similar level." He added that was "based on a detailed restructuring report which was then corroborated by a further external report and was scrutinised by Welsh Government lawyers".
The impact of infrastructure
By car, Cardiff Airport is 27 miles from Newport, with a journey of around 45 minutes depending on what time of day you travel. Bristol, is 35 miles, with a journey time that could easily go over an hour. On first glance, Cardiff is the better option, so why doesn't this translate to passenger figures?
The simple answer: public transport. To do the journey from Newport to Bristol you'd be able to get a direct bus, running fairly frequently, and a walk consisting of under 10 minutes. To do the same journey to Cardiff Airport? Despite being in the same country, you'd be looking at at least two different trains. To attract international visitors - many of which travel without a car - this could be the nail in the coffin for their decision.
In Plenary this week [January 2023] Mr Waters said "we take an overall view as a Government that Wales needs an airport. There are a significant number of people still flying from there who otherwise would be travelling to other airports in the UK. And from a business and economy point of view, having a regional airport remains a strong part of the offer.
"For example, some of the major events that are happening in the stadium in Cardiff would not be attracted to Cardiff were there not an airport here. Also, a number of the large manufacturing companies in south Wales regularly fly executives in and out of the airport—many on private planes, but, nonetheless, it's an important economic asset for the region."
Visitors will regularly face transport issues when attending big events. Wales' football fans routinely struggle to get back to anywhere outside of south Wales after a game at the Cardiff City stadium. Visitors for the rugby internationals will find themselves in queues outside the stadium. And Ed Sheeran's recent visit to Cardiff saw estimates of 15 miles of tailbacks with the thousands of people coming to Wales stuck in traffic jams on the M4. Some people missed the concert due to the delays and issues were reported for those who used public transport.
Ultimately, if the Welsh Government believes the airport is key to attracting events to the capital city, then it also needs to invest in that city and its surrounding infrastructure. Without doing so, and providing the tools needed to make guarantee that Cardiff Airport is functioning, thriving, and serving the passengers of Wales and beyond then it undermines the continues push to market Wales as a place to visit and live.
On top of that, it has long been identified that Cardiff has a particularly small number of hotel rooms. When the Champions League final came to Cardiff in 2017, Cardiff had 4,000 rooms, a fraction of 76,000 previous host city Paris had, and even less than Berlin's 135,000. Cardiff's hotel numbers has gone to somewhere around 5,500, we understand, but even with double occupancy that is a fraction of the number needed for a sell-out event at the Principality Stadium. Airbnb prices reach hundreds of pounds for the nights of big events.
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We're obviously disappointed that Wizz Air has decided to withdraw from Cardiff Airport.
“Our Covid recovery plan remains in place, but clearly the current economic climate is incredibly tough for the aviation sector. Smaller airports are vital to regional economies across the UK and we urge the UK Government to provide the support to put them on a secure footing for the future.”
Read next:
- The 'impossible' situation Wales' ambulance workers are facing as winter pressures rise
- The three huge issues risking Cardiff's ability to host world-class events
- Cardiff Airport sees biggest drop in passengers across the entire UK
- Cardiff Airport valued at just £15m – less than a third of what the Welsh Government paid for it
