Qatar Airways has today announced flights to Cardiff will begin from 1 May 2018, operated by a 788 on a daily basis

Schedule is as follows

QR321 DOH725-1250CWL 788 x246
QR323 DOH115-640CWL 788 246

QR322 CWL1555-50+1DOH 788 x246
QR324 CWL810-1705DOH 788 246

https://www.qatarairways.com/en/press-r ... s-releases

Great news for Cardiff Airport and Wales! Securing a daily 787 service to the gulf is a massive coup for the airport and Wales and will hopefully get other airlines to consider routes to Wales.
https://www.cardiff-airport.com/news/1

Congrats for QR

As this was announced/discussed back in April...

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1361303
viewtopic.php?t=1361481

...is this the first time the flight times have been released or what is the news?

vfw614 wrote:

As this was announced/discussed back in April...

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1361303
viewtopic.php?t=1361481

...is this the first time the flight times have been released or what is the news?

The flights have been put on sale today and flight times frequency and aircraft type have been confirmed.

Great news for CWL - now they just need to achieve the passenger numbers to make the service viable. Theoretically CWL is well positioned to attract passengers from the whole Severnside area including the South West of England including the Bristol area which is only about 50 miles away by road with a motorway most of the way. However accessibility to the airport from the M4 motorway needs to be improved as does the bottleneck on that motorway at the Brynglas Tunnels which is increasingly the cause of very significant delays. I often thought that with its relatively long runway, CWL should be able to attract a long haul carrier like Norwegian but again I think it would need to draw in passengers from England to make any operations sustainable.

Think the intention is also to draw away passengers from travelling down to LHR. I know a lot of people in the South Wales area who for convenience sake will get a train / drive to Heathrow for the ease of destinations. Wonder how this will compare to the price of flying from LHR on Qatar in the long term.

I'm guessing they might want to initially undercut the LHR flights (guessing that landing fees are presumably significantly cheaper at CWL than LHR).
Will be interesting to see what then happens to the price/ loads.

I still find it shocking how Qatar Airways can still expand rapidly like this especially during a crisis that won't be solved for a long time.

Nice regional UK add though. EK flies to the regional city of NCL with daily flights, and it works pretty well for them.

NichCage wrote:

I still find it shocking how Qatar Airways can still expand rapidly like this especially during a crisis that won't be solved for a long time.

Dont see how 'crisis' effects air-travel. If anything QR is now free to add even more routes due freed up aircraft not serving markets like Saudi.

I dont know a single person that has avoided travel on QR or visit Qatar. I actually have a conference in February, which I very much look forward to attending (and enjoying QR).

mercure1 wrote:

NichCage wrote:

I still find it shocking how Qatar Airways can still expand rapidly like this especially during a crisis that won't be solved for a long time.

Dont see how 'crisis' effects air-travel. If anything QR is now free to add even more routes due freed up aircraft not serving markets like Saudi.

I dont know a single person that has avoided travel on QR or visit Qatar. I actually have a conference in February, which I very much look forward to attending (and enjoying QR).

20-25% of their flights were in the four countries that banned them. I think this quite seriously affects them.

PerfectGriffin wrote:

mercure1 wrote:

NichCage wrote:

I still find it shocking how Qatar Airways can still expand rapidly like this especially during a crisis that won't be solved for a long time.

Dont see how 'crisis' effects air-travel. If anything QR is now free to add even more routes due freed up aircraft not serving markets like Saudi.

I dont know a single person that has avoided travel on QR or visit Qatar. I actually have a conference in February, which I very much look forward to attending (and enjoying QR).

20-25% of their flights were in the four countries that banned them. I think this quite seriously affects them.

It certainly requires them to change their model in a big way. Expanding on flights to Europe and S/SE Asia+OZ is a sensible course of action if ever I saw one.

Seems that some inside QR where not convinced that a daily Cardiff service would not have enough passengers to justify the daily flight

The chief executive of Qatar Airways said he resisted pressure from inside the company not to fly between Doha and Cardiff Airport.
Akbar Al Baker said there were "very strong arguments" from people inside the airline that there were not enough passengers to justify the new daily flight.
But he insisted he will be proved right in opting for Cardiff instead of Bristol.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-41469143

qf789 wrote:

Seems that some inside QR where not convinced that a daily Cardiff service would not have enough passengers to justify the daily flight

The chief executive of Qatar Airways said he resisted pressure from inside the company not to fly between Doha and Cardiff Airport.
Akbar Al Baker said there were "very strong arguments" from people inside the airline that there were not enough passengers to justify the new daily flight.
But he insisted he will be proved right in opting for Cardiff instead of Bristol.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-41469143

Its a difficult one, it may turn out to be a one hit wonder like DXB is for Newcastle.