Ryanair has announced more flights from Cardiff Airport next year including daily services to Dublin. The airline will also be extending its route to the Spanish resort of Malaga by operating all summer (April-October) with two flights a week. It is also maintaining a year-round flights to Faro.
Ryanair's announcement comes as latest figures show passengers numbers at the Welsh Government-owned airport have reached 50% of pre-Covid levels.
The airport's aviation development director, Marc Watkins, said: “Ryanair offered extra Dublin frequencies over this last summer which sold well, giving the airline the confidence to commit to a daily flight for next summer. Responding to strong passenger demand from Cardiff with the extra Malaga flights being added during September and October next year, thousands more travellers will be able to fly to Spain’s Costa del Sol in 2023. After launching winter flights to Faro last month, we are really happy that Ryanair is continuing its commitment to this Portuguese hotspot again next summer.”
Read more: Devastating passenger number figures show how hard hit Cardiff Airport has been
The expansion by Ryanair will effectively offset reduced services to Palma de Mallorca and Paris by Spanish airline Veuling from the Rhoose-based airport. Ryanair's Malaga route is not operating through the current winter season. It only operated twice weekly last year at the height of the summer season.
Hungarian-owned Wizz Air is also scheduled to recommence its base at the airport - having taken the decision to mothball the operation through the current winter season, from next spring. Tickets for the summer season are already on sale.
While depending on staff capacity issues at Schiphol Airport being resolved, the number of daily flights from KLM between Cardiff to Amsterdam are expected to rise to three from February. Cardiff Aiport is also looking for Loganair, which operates a service to Edinburgh, to increase frequency. It is also hopeful of the route to Belfast, operated by Emerald Air on behalf of Aer Lingus rising from the current four days a week to daily from the spring.
The airport remains in discussions with Qatar Airways, which suspended its scheduled service from Cardiff to Doha at the start of the pandemic. The airline’s services globally are still below pre-Covid levels with its flights from Birmingham International Airport also currently on hold. Any return of the Cardiff to Doha service is not expected until 2024.
Latest figures for October showed the airport handled 74,000 passengers - a 55% recovery on pre-Covid in October 2019. For the rolling year to the end of October the airport handled 814,000 passengers, which was 50% pre-Covid recovered
The airport is on track to hitting its 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.
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