Wizz Air has confirmed two new routes from Cardiff Airport after pulling its base for the winter season. The Hungarian owned-airline, after launching its inaugural summer season from the Rhoose-based airport, took the decision not to continue to operate through the winter season (from later this month) with a dedicated plane and 40 cabin and pilot crew.
While Wizz Air intends to reactive its base for its summer season next spring at the Welsh Government-owned airport, staff have been redeployed to its bases at London Luton and Gatwick airports.
The twice weekly new routes from October 30th, are to the Romanian capital of Bucharest and the Italian city of Milan (Malpensa).
The airline has been more adversely impacted by the cost of hedging fuel costs than some competitive airlines. Its planned winter scheduled formed part of a business plan that predated the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
Marc Watkins, aviation development manager at Cardiff Airport, said: “Undoubtedly there will be plenty of people using the route to visit family and friends, but Romania is also an undiscovered ski gem. The resort of Poiana Braov, the most popular ski resort in the country, is just a two-hour drive from Bucharest. And with flights to Milan also, skiers can also sample the slopes of northern Italy from Cardiff too. The new route to Milan will make travel to Wales easier for the 30,000 Italians that visit us every year.”
The route to Romania is the first scheduled service to the country from Cardiff. It is also the first scheduled service to Italy since 2019 - the last being a route to Rome operated by former airline Bmibaby.
Madalina Ciinaru, head of he Bucharest office of the British Romanian Chamber of Commerce, said: “We are delighted to welcome the addition of a new route from Bucharest to Cardiff on Tuesdays and Sundays, starting October 30th. I’m glad Wizz Air continues to remain loyal to its promise to offer low fares and diverse travel options in Europe, especially adding Cardiff to its offerings, thus providing an alternative route and encouraging trade between the two countries. We strongly encourage our members to travel to their home country or to visit friends or families in Cardiff and utilise the Wizz new air service.”
Latest figures from the Civil Aviation Authority show that in July the airport handled just over 122,000 passengers. That was a huge rise of 1,102% on July, 2021, but has to be set against the context that the airport was effectively mothballed at the time due to the pandemic. The latest rolling year figure - the 12 months to the end of July - show passengers numbers at just over 574,000, a rise of 610% on the previous year.
The airport said it is on track to hit the target of seeing passenger numbers recovered to 50% of pre-Covid 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. However, the airport lags behind many other UK airports, on the pandemic recovery percentage measure.
Cardiff Airport has seen strong demand for both its Belfast and Dublin routes and from November KLM will double the current number of weekly flights between Cardiff and Amsterdam from 20 to 40 a week. The frequency of the route had been impacted by staffing issues at Schiphol Airport - an issue experienced by many airport over the summer with pandemic restrictions lifted - which have now been resolved.
A decision has yet to be made as to when Qatar Airways will resume its scheduled Cardiff to Doha route. The airport remains in constant dialogue with the airline which launched its route in 2018 before suspending it due to Covid. For the World Cup in November the Football Association of Wales has chartered four planes from the airport for Welsh fans through its travel provider Wonky Sheep.
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