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Critics of struggling Cardiff Airport (CA) have condemned a fanfare of publicity about a link up with a cargo company which flies to China, when the country has a controversial human rights record, and one of its regions is the centre of mass rape and torture allegations, as well as highlighting the concern of local residents.
One aviation expert told The Eye: “This is just unbelievable. We hear all this hoo hah about European Cargo basing itself at Cardiff which is supported by the government, with its flight connections with Xinjiang, but the human rights record there is awful, and it appears that local people are unhappy”.
China stands accused of locking up hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the Xinjiang region (although officials have vehemently denied it), and introducing a report about what is happening there, The BBC has stated: “The US has welcomed a long-awaited report by the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, which concludes that China’s policies in Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity”.
European Cargo (EC) have launched a three-times-per-week flight between CA and China, while they also have major plans for the future, and intend to add an additional service in the near future.
In announcing the connection, EC Chief Executive (CEO) Jason Holt declared: “As we continue to grow our business expanding outwards from Bournemouth, we see Wales as a fantastic place to invest in. Cardiff Airport has many advantages, including 24-hour operational facilities and easy road access to the motorway network”, and CA’s own CEO Spencer Birns said: “There is huge demand for airfreighters in the marketplace and this investment in Wales is primarily down to the excellent facilities and teams we have at the Airport”.
Nearby residents too are unamused, although for different reasons, because the ’24-hour operational facilities’ appear to have alarmed some of them.
One has written to The Glamorgan Star saying: “VALE of Glamorgan residents should not be pleased at Cardiff Airport’s attraction of European Cargo flights to and from China.
“The company said that the airport’s ’24-hour operating model’ was a factor in its decision. Do we want night flights of freight aircraft over the Vale? This is not for the benefit of local residents”.
The Welsh Government (WG) may be in the firing line too, because (as the critic makes clear) it gives many millions of pounds in tax payers’ money to support CA.
It was bought by the WG in 2013 for £52 million, while the Scottish Government (SG) purchased Glasgow Prestwick Airport (GPA) for just £1, yet a valuation of Cardiff’s in the years which followed said it was worth only £15 million.
Since the public acquisition, the WG has provided over £130 million in support in the form of loans and equity investment (with an official announcement of another £206 million).
There has also been around £3 million in subsidies for the now-defunct Cardiff to Anglesey air link as well as unknown amounts of incentives to airlines, some of which pulled out as soon as the money stopped.
However in December 2012, the First Minister of Wales (FMW) at the time, Carwyn Jones, had said, when the airport was about to be obtained, that it should make a “return to the Welsh taxpayer”.
Plaid Cymru (Plaid) welcomed the news that CA was to be taken into public ownership, and stated that it needed to be a “shop front” for Wales, but the Welsh Conservatives (WC) demanded evidence that nationalisation would provide value, and the Liberal Democrats (LD) warned it would become a “money pit” for public funds.
Despite the cash lavished on it, the airport has still failed to achieve success compared to other regional airports, and languished at the very bottom of the league table.
CA passenger numbers plunged by 87 per cent during the height of the pandemic, with travellers there falling from 1,656,085 in 2019 to just 219,984 in 2020. Southampton Airport suffered an 83.4 per cent decline, London City Airport saw a drop of 82.3 percent in passenger figures, with numbers at Leeds-Bradford Airport going down by 81.2 per cent.
Yet the man in charge blamed the Welsh Government (WG), even in the face of ministers spending millions of pounds to keep his airport afloat.
Mr Birns told a committee at the Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC): “There was more traffic handling at other airports than there was at Cardiff, but then don’t forget we’ve been in a position in Wales where, and quite rightly so, the government have been so heavily focused on the health of the nation, that actually encouraging people not to travel overseas has been a major factor in the Welsh government’s approach”.
In February it was reported that CA had continued to make a loss as it endeavoured to reach passenger numbers which were back to pre-pandemic levels.
It lost £4.5 million in the year to March 2023, after receiving a government grant of £5.3 million.
However this vast amount of public money also comes in the wake of other worrying information.
One angry traveller said on CA’s own Facebook (FB) page that he was “not happy” he now had to fly from “bloody Bristol”, while it has also been announced: “There has never been sufficient demand in the winter from Cardiff”.
A further tourist said: “I flew to Tenerife on 13th Dec from Cardiff. Only 45 of us on the flight”.
Huge concerns from flyers were put on other sites as well after an internal service, which had been recently restored, was halted.
Several years ago direct flights from CA to Belfast were introduced, operated by Eastern Airways, but, even though the flights were (as with the cargo firm base) greeted with enormous fanfare, the route was later suspended.
A detractor has also said that questions should be asked of the Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC), while another stated that it was cheaper to fly from Bristol.
A further critic, included in his comments a spoof news report, with a remark from a CA executive: “Never mind, we will just apply to our pals at the WAG (Welsh Assembly Government, the former WG) for another massive donation of tax-payer cash.”.
These remarks appear to be borne out in the press. UK Aviation News has stated: “The future of Cardiff Airport (CWL/EGFF) has been thrown into doubt today following comments made by the Welsh Labour-controlled Government that owns the airport”. The remarkable events at CA have even been the subject of our satirical writer Edwin Phillips.
They are set against a picture of thriving airports in Scotland, which are almost the same distance apart as CA and Bristol Airport (BA).
The time taken travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow airports is over an hour, while it is just 18 minutes more between CA and BA, yet both are successful because their services complement each other rather than compete.
Meanwhile, in stark contrast to the publicity from senior officials, politicians, and the mainstream media in Wales when a link-up was announced between CA and the state-run Qatar Airways (QA), the former Welsh Deputy Minister for Climate Change, Lee Waters, MS, acknowledged that providing incentives to airlines (as they did with QA) is against climate change policies.
He admitted to other WP/SC politicians: “I don’t think that subsidising and encouraging (air travel) is in keeping with the challenge of climate change that we have and that the Prime Minister is trying to claim great international leadership on; I think it is a contradiction”
Other politicians, however, were disconcerted by this proclamation, as well as the announcement from Mr Skates. The Conservative shadow Minister for Transport Natasha Asghar, MS, said: “The minister’s comments were somewhat surprising given the number of taxpayer handouts Cardiff Airport has received since being taken into public ownership … It is a little hypocritical of Labour to say subsidising air travel is a bad thing, when they’ve pumped in hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer cash, and continue to do so, into their failed vanity project.
“If Labour ministers are planning to stop subsidising Cardiff Airport because it flies in the face of climate change, then it raises some serious questions over its future. I have no doubt that Cardiff Airport could become a thriving transport hub but after this latest intervention its future is now hanging by a thread”.
A “…thriving transport hub…” would appear to include having a cargo firm with flights to a region of China where human rights have been widely condemned, and where local people voice their concern.
Details of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s astonishing career (including being the first to reveal uncomfortable facts such as these) as he was gripped by the rare neurological condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Tomorrow – how during that career for Phil it was always massively important to be first with the news, and this is now underlined by information which is emerging today.
It was reported at the weekend in the UK media that a big one-off rise in university tuition fees will “not be enough”, so we re-publish our story on The Eye about the increase from last week, which begins that it may “not be enough”.
