There is an interesting post on the Cardiff thread regarding Qatar's revamp of Air Italy which should end up affecting the entire QR network as the latter will be leasing Qatar's 30 787-8 planes (with the first due in May 2019).

Qatar have 30 787-9 planes on order, presumably to replace the -8, so we have a (very) rough timescale for when we could expect an aircraft upgrade. It depends on how fast QR plan to shift the -8s over to Air Italy (which is something I don't know).

DOH-EDI ran for 5 years for an upgrade - could we beat that?
 
With the new Qatar Airways Cardiff-Doha route nearly a week old there is speculation that cargo might be a very important sustaining element of the route. Does anyone know how much cargo Qatar carries on its BHX flights each year?

The CAA used to publish annual freight statistics but no longer does so. Table 02 was last published in 2015 and shows that in that year BHX handled an overall total of 6,940 tonnes of freight on scheduled airlines and 224 tonnes on charter airlines. In addition 113 tonnes of mail was carried. There was never any breakdown across individual airlines.

As a comparison, in 2015 CWL carried 25 tonnes of freight on charter airlines and 274 tonnes of mail.
 
Qatar brings a huge amount of Fruit in on its DOH-BHX route destined for supermarkets this shipment is almost every day consisting of about 3 trailers of cargo

Many thanks for that, Sam.
 
Some negative publicity from Qatar themselves on the new Cardiff to Doha route. Tends to support some of the views expressed on this forum that Freight is doing OK but passenger numbers not as expected. Speculation on the decision to choose Cardiff over Bristol was as a result of attractive short term incentives. I think BHX has seen the impact that this type of commercial crutch can have

Here is the full story
https://www.independent.co.uk/trave...assenger-numbers-akbar-al-baker-a8450646.html

The route was launched only a few months ago. And the original start date for a daily service was put back by six weeks. Now the CEO is saying it hasn’t lived up to expectations but his airline will give it time.
 
Unlike Cardiff, Bristol airport doesn't currently offer cargo services so thats likely to be the main reason Bristol wasn't chosen. Qatar may have also decided the Bristol runway is too short for their requirements.
 
Tends to support some of the views expressed on this forum that Freight is doing OK but passenger numbers not as expected.
Yet the airport has put out passenger disputing that. The route got off to a slow start yes but it is growing.
 
Some negative publicity from Qatar themselves on the new Cardiff to Doha route. Tends to support some of the views expressed on this forum that Freight is doing OK but passenger numbers not as expected. Speculation on the decision to choose Cardiff over Bristol was as a result of attractive short term incentives. I think BHX has seen the impact that this type of commercial crutch can have

Here is the full story
https://www.independent.co.uk/trave...assenger-numbers-akbar-al-baker-a8450646.html

The route was launched only a few months ago. And the original start date for a daily service was put back by six weeks. Now the CEO is saying it hasn’t lived up to expectations but his airline will give it time.

From a Cardiff perspective it's still very much early days. It's possibly reminiscent of Turkish arriving at BHX, they didn't exactly have a great start and many wondered when it would be pulled rather than if. After extensive advertising and much hard work they turned things around and have gone from strength to strength, I'm sure Qatar will do the same at Cardiff.

From a Birmingham perspective this quote is encouraging :)

He added: “The rest of the network in the UK is doing good."
 
The CEO of Qatar Airways gave a number of reasons, both operational and commercial, for choosing Wales over Bristol (as he put it), some of which were contradictory. One of the reasons was the fact that Bristol has other alternatives and so people would not use his airline in large enough numbers from there, and he particularly mentioned BHX as one of the alternatives.

He then went on to say that Cardiff has a bigger catchment than Bristol with 6.4 million people (twice the population of the whole of Wales) which means he was including a substantial part of the BRS catchment in his version of CWL's.

I take his point that the West Country does have viable alternatives with LHR being the main one and it's the default choice of most West Country people for long haul. I don't know how many people from the West Country use BHX with Qatar and Emirates - I did some years ago with Emirates from my Bristol home but since then London (both LHR and LGW) has proved a better option every time I wanted to go long haul. I looked seriously at using Qatar from either CWL or BHX in November this year for our (my wife and me) next trip to Australia but the far greater choice at LHR won the day (with Emirates again), and I'm not just talking about the fare.

I wonder if the seemingly disappointing passenger take-up on the CWL route (at least initially, we shall have to see how it develops) is because the Qatar CEO over-estimated the number of West Country people who would use the route. More than doubling CWL's primary catchment indicates that the BRS catchment was in his thoughts to bolster the CWL route, but was there not a danger that with such reasoning his BHX route might be diluted slightly if some of those West Country passengers who have been using Qatar at BHX merely switched to CWL?
 
...After extensive advertising and much hard work they turned things around and have gone from strength to strength, I'm sure Qatar will do the same at Cardiff."

And there are folks who say a positive effect of advertising is difficult to prove! Rubbish of course. ;)
 
This is a clear statement if ever there was one

Ministers pay £1m to Qatar Airways to market Wales
_99906599_37081002093_d2455a6f8c_o.jpg
Image
Qatar Airways will receive £1m from the Welsh Government to market Wales as a destination around the world.
It initially refused to reveal the cost, claiming it would compromise the economic interests of the country.

The airline will also contribute £1m to the two-year partnership, which has an option to extend for a further two years for another £1m each.
First Minister Carwyn Jones previously described the deal as a "huge boost" for Wales.

The Welsh Government had originally said the deal's significance could not be "underestimated", and the value and structure was commercially sensitive.

Opposition politicians had criticised it for not releasing the information, but the Welsh Government had said it strived "to be as open and transparent as possible".
The Welsh Government said it had made a payment to the airline in the financial year ending March 2018, and another payment will be made in the second year.
The contract will be monitored by the Welsh Government and Qatar Airways.

The service was launched in May and started running daily from the middle of June. Last week, Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar al-Baker told The Independent that the Cardiff to Doha route was not performing as expected in terms of passenger sales. However, he said their freight service had performed well.

Cardiff Airport said all routes take time to mature and that more than 1,500 passengers had flown on the route in the previous week, out of 1,750 seats potentially available.
 
A clear statement that the Welsh government have put the £1m on the table to promote the region and obviously the route. They had previously declined to given the figure as they considered it commercially sensitive but looks like political pressure forced their hand.
You could argue that at 1,500 passengers per week , it is only equivalent to about £13 per pax which you would expect Cardiff airport to more than re-coup so probably ends up with a net gain.
If its a 2 or 3 year deal then the airline gets support too while the route is developing
 
Meanwhile how much did Marketing Birmingham (Don't think we had a West Mids Combined authority when Qatar launched at BHX) pay Qatar for promoting Birmingham/Heart of England ??

I think I know the answer to this one ? :unsure:
 

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