Air Wales is pulling out of Swansea.Taken from This Is Southwales, quite sad really.
Air Wales is pulling out of Swansea. It is axing its services out of the city this autumn. It will concentrate instead on Cardiff. Staff are being told today that their jobs will go by October.
It will mean an end to cheap and quick flights to European cities such as Amsterdam and Dublin from Swansea.
The company had already cut back on its operations earlier this year reducing its flights in and out of the city.
Now everything else is to go as city entrepreneur Roy Thomas pulls the plug.
The move is a shock blow to Swansea. It had pinned high hopes on the service boosting both its business and tourism rankings.
It needed around 1,000 or so people a week to use the service just to break even.
However, only a couple of hundred were taking advantage of it.
It is believed Mr Thomas would have soldiered on despite that. However, he was suddenly landed with a huge bill for essential works at the airport being demanded by the Civil Aviation Authority.
An insider said: “It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“He would have struggled on, but faced with a bill for millions, reluctantly decided against it.”
Various companies have tried to make a go of the airport over the years. But Air Wales had been the most successful to date with Roy Thomas personally pouring more than £1 million of his own money into it since its October 2001 launch.
Today’s revelation will mean Air Wales’s base returning to its use as an aerodrome.
It will delight anti-airport campaigners furious at the noise upset they claimed was being created by the planes using Fairwood.
But it will still be a huge disappointment to others who wanted the company and its £99 return flights to carry on. The Swansea-London link is the biggest blow. It is thought around 20 workers might be hit although as many as possible will be offered alternative jobs within the company, most probably at its new Cardiff HQ which will be the base for its operations and engineering work. Talks with staff start today.
Cardiff flights to Newcastle, Plymouth and Jersey, Glasgow and Cork carry on as will London, Dublin and Amsterdam.
The revamp work currently underway on a new arrivals hall in Swansea will also continue.
Today’s development comes less than a year after the company launched its new Swansea-Amsterdam service catering specifically for the leisure traveller. Air Wales was known to be keen to tap into the increasingly popular weekend city break market.
It was also hoped it would pull in European visitors to Swansea.
The company today emphasised Swansea Airport was not closing and that any redundancies would be kept to a minimum.
By: Bmused55 - 20th July 2004 at 12:52
Such a shame.
This is what happens when the men in suits start trying to grab money from anywhere they can.
IE, the CAA demanding money from Air Wales for works at Swansea.
Still, at least there is still Cardiff
By: Arabella-Cox - 20th July 2004 at 12:28
It’s a shame for Swansea, do they have any other routes out of the airport or did Air Wales just operate them all?
By: carl727uk - 20th July 2004 at 09:15
That’s sad for Swansea, its bad when areas loose important links to Capital Cities/ Hubs, makes it harder for them to prosper
By: Pablo - 19th July 2004 at 16:08
A pity. I understood the Welsh Assembly is considering financing local air services, particularly between North and South Wales, so hopefully new services in Wales may be imminent at some future date.
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July 19, 2004 at 3:53 pm