Qatar Airways plan to return to Cardiff Airport by the end of the year according to the airline's Group Chief Executive. His Excellency, Akbar Al Baker, met with Vale of Glamorgan MP, Alun Cairns in Doha to discuss Qatar Airways future plans, including their return to Cardiff.
The airline paused its Cardiff to Doha route at the stat of the pandemic in 2020 and following a dispute with Airbus which left them short of aircraft over three years later and the route has yet to restart. The dispute saw it grounding around 20 of its Airbus A350 wide body aircraft. The airline's chief executive said in March that once the A350s are back in service it will free up aircraft for routes such as Cardiff.
A return would be a welcomed boost for the airport after the decision in January of low-cost carrier Wizz Airport to pull its base operation. The Hungarian-owned airline, having launched its base with nine routes for the 2022 summer season, had indicated it would recommence the base for the current summer after a decision to mothball it over the winter.
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The Welsh Government bought Cardiff airport in 2013 for £52m, but a decade on and it is struggling with falling passenger numbers and unable to retain airlines. Last year the airport was valued at just £15m, less than a third of what the Welsh Government paid for it. Ministers have also written off £42.6m of debt and pumped an additional £158m into the airport. Despite this, figures show its recovery still lags behind other major UK airports as they recover from 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.
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.
As a result, the return of Qatar Airways would be a much-needed boost for the airport. In what was the first scheduled direct route between Wales and the Middle East, Qatar Airways, launched a daily service in May, 2018, with a daily service between the Welsh Government owned airport and Hamad International in Doha.
In its first year the route carried just over 82,000 passengers with a significant number using Hamad’s hub status for onward journey connecting flights, with particular strong demand for Australasia and the Far East. In the 12 months prior to the pandemic (March 2020) the annualised passenger number had reached 92,000.
Encouragingly for its UK originating passengers, some 18% were from England — a much higher contribution than for all flights from the airport (around 4%). Moreover, 25% of passengers who travelled specifically between Qatar and Wales were travelling for business purposes.
While on a trip as part of the Qatar Economic Forum where a group of MPs attended to discuss Qatar-UK relations Mr Cairns met with Akbar Al Baker to discuss the significance of the Airline returning to the Airport based within his constituency, the Vale of Glamorgan.
Commenting on the meeting Mr Cairns said: "I was delighted to meet with His Excellency, Akbar Al Baker in Doha and discuss how important the Airline is for Wales and the Welsh economy. I am grateful to him for his commitment to restarting the flights from Cardiff to Doha. This is a vital connection to the Middle East and beyond. I was lucky enough to be The Secretary of State for Wales when I first discussed the ambition for a daily flight in 2017. This was when I first met Mr Al Baker and we have worked together ever since.]
“The pandemic clearly had an impact on the airline industry, but I am hopeful that with the return of Qatar Airway’s to Cardiff, this will provide a big boost to the airport that has suffered in recent times. I believe that the resumption of this service will provide new opportunities in".
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