Isn’t it just so lovely that politicians nationalise the commanding heights so that taxpayers can benefit from the profits to be made:
Mark Drakeford is under fire for spending millions of pounds of taxpayer cash on propping up loss-making Cardiff Airport.
The Welsh First Minister handed the South Wales airport £8.9m over the last year – but it was not enough to prevent bosses racking up more than £3m in fresh losses.
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
Yes, i caught a little bit of the sennad questions on this, Mark initially blamed lockdown/covid, but the opposition guy brought up its neighbours/competitors, Bristol and West midlands. They have made much better recoveries in thier numbers. Mark’s comeback was along the lines of you guys always always have put down cardiff airport, i believe in it. Pretty cringe.
Unless your destination was Cardiff, Swansea or the valleys, why would you fly to Cardiff if you could fly to Bristol instead and have slightly worse access to South Wales but much better access to the West of England and Bath – God’s own city?
In fact, you would probably have easier access to North Wales from Bristol as well.
Cardiff airport isn’t in Cardiff. It’s way out in the sticks, and almost nearer to Bridgend. The roads are typical country roads, and it’s about 25 minutes to half an hour from the nearest motorway junction. A train from Cardiff to the airport takes an hour.
It’s no wonder no-one sane flies from there.
BiW… About 20 years ago, I flew to Cardiff to meet with my ex wife and she was going to collect me. She was 1 hour late. There was no café. A couple of cabs, but they left quite promptly when no passengers appeared. I presume they had delivered passengers to the terminal and were hoping for a return fare. Maybe one bus turned up. I don’t even recall any seating in the terminal. I enjoyed watching the plovers frolic around the runway though. No other flights came in. I did wonder at the purpose of it at the time
A few days ago I checked for flights from Norwich to Edinburgh. You have to change in Schiphol. Maybe Cardiff should offer the cloggies some competition.
From Companies House filings for Cardiff Airport
Sales ￡ 10,6 million
Administrative expenses. ￡ 23 million
Looks like they kept all the staff even when no one was flying.
dearieme – as I recall I flew into Cardiff from Schiphol. It was one of those 50 seater turboprop jobs. the navigation appeared to be to hop across the North Sea, follow the Thames to London and then take the M4. Luckily we were not flying low enough to have to pay the toll at the Severn Bridge
Hey Chief.
I might be wrong,
But I think we’re flying to Cardiff.
At least Wee Krankie paid only £1 for Prestwick (or rather, we did) but in every other way it’s about the same…
dearime,
Was it still cheaper than the train?
But I thought we were in the middle of a climate crisis and aviation was evil?
if you were looking for a candidate for the stocks, would it be Drakeford, or the numpties who voted for him?