News: New flights between Cardiff and Belfast set for next summer
Flights > News > # 1104 (06/12/2006)
Flybe will launch its first flights from Cardiff next summer with a twice daily service to Belfast City.
The announcement of the new route, which takes off on May 17, is likely to be the first of many as Flybe continues to expand its regional domestic network.
Flybe’s chief commercial officer, Mike Rutter, said: “Cardiff Airport has massive potential for growth and we are already looking at options for further new routes to be introduced early next year so watch this space.”
Cardiff airport’s managing director, Jon Horne, added: “We’re always looking to bring increased choice to travellers in and around Cardiff so we are delighted to welcome Flybe as a new carrier to our fast-growing airport.
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Comment:
Are these new flights a natural progression of Flybe's expansion throughout the UK, especially following the collapse of the Air Wales earlier this year, or is this new Belfast to Cardiff route a competitive response to BmiBaby’s rapid expansion at Flybe’s largest base, Birmingham?
With Flybe set to complete its takeover of BA Connect in January, there are numerous highly lucrative domestic shuttle routes which Flybe might have had for itself, if only BmiBaby hadn’t got in the way, so it is little surprise that Flybe want to challenge BmiBaby at Cardiff. Perhaps Flybe feel it has a much better chance in this particular fight than they had on their flights from Liverpool and Bristol, two airports from which it has all but retreated in the face of competition from Easyjet.
We will wait with interest to see if the strategy pays off. Easyjet has certainly established itself as an extremely dominant force at both Liverpool and Bristol, from where it has been able to operate good frequencies on flights to destinations such as Belfast, despite using much larger aircraft than Flybe. The market for flights from Cardiff is much smaller than it is at either Liverpool or Bristol, so Flybe might find itself in a position to offer much more attractive schedules than BmiBaby, without having to discount heavily in order to put bums on seats. Regular passengers might also appreciate the convenience of Belfast City over Belfast International, although this factor on its own does not appear to have been enough to have enabled Flybe to have competed effectively against Easyjet at either Bristol or Liverpool.
The prospects of Flybe offering more domestic flights from Cardiff in the near future would be an interesting one, but would these be head-to-head against BmiBaby, or would these destinations be new to Cardiff? Flights to cities such as Newcastle and Aberdeen might be a possibility, but routes which can be profitably operated by a niche airline like Eastern Airways do not always have enough demand for a larger airline to make them work.
Perhaps Flybe plan to offer more flights to France, especially considering that there aren’t currently any French destinations with direct flights on offer from Cardiff. Flybe might well be able to make flights to Paris work, whereas the airline’s recent expansion into Nice might also continue at Cardiff, together with some of the more rural airports Flybe operate into.
