Plans unveiled for £200m subsidy for Cardiff Airport

THE Welsh Government has unveiled plans to provide more than £200m of subsidy support to Cardiff Airport over the next decade.

It said the money would also be used in efforts to try to attract new airlines and routes with the aim of passenger numbers exceeding two million a year.

Bristol Airport has previously objected to subsidies benefiting its Welsh Government-owned rival, particularly when moves were being made to devolve passenger duties from Westminster to Cardiff.

The subsidy support up to 2035 would take the Welsh Government’s funding commitment since it acquired the airport in 2013 to nearly £400m.

Under the proposed subsidy support its terminal building and facilities would also be upgraded.

Cabinet Secretary for the Economy and Transport, Ken Skates, pictured, confirmed that the Welsh Government had notified the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) of its plans to provide up to £206m of nonrepayable funding.

The CMA is expected to decide whether the proposed support complies with the the UK’s post-EU subsidy support regime later this year. If approved, the finance will support Cardiff’s diversification strategy of increasing revenues from non-terminal passenger-related activities, to around 50%.

The support would also be used to try to attract new routes aligned to the Welsh government international strategy, with Europe, North America and the Middle East and Far East identified as key targets. However, the airport remains in talks with Qatar Airways over resuming its daily scheduled service from Cardiff to Qatar which was mothballed at the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Revealing the subsidy support plans in a Senedd statement, Mr Skates said the aim was for the airport to reach two million passengers a year over the next decade.

Last year it attracted 841,000 passengers and that is expected to rise to close to one million for 2024. However, it it is still some way off the pre-Covid annual passenger number of 1.6 million.

Bristol, meanwhile, was the first major UK airport to exceed pre-Covid numbers of passengers, with 9.8 million flying from there last year.