Qatar and Cardiff

When Qatar start flying out of CWL in May, does anyone know if the current, fairly uninspiring lounge will be upgraded?

We have booked some amazingly cheap Business seats to KUL in November and it would be nice to think we can start off nicely.

I don't think that you should hold your breath.

The original service was a seven days a week programme; it dropped to five days in February and, now, it's further reduced to Sunday and Tuesday.

Sadly not I think - as NV43 has indcated the route has already been slashed .
I was last in the lounge about a month ago - it’s fine for a brief stay but nothing more.
I’d hoped that things would improve when WeG took back control but that doesn’t seem to have happened..
DL

Interesting. The Qatar site is stull showing daily flights until the end of the year and five times a week thereafter.

Yes they are; but the Flybe flight to CDG, and the wait for the slightly larger airframe (A380), doesn't appear until you enter the booking process.

The added sting is you get to pay HMRC band B APD for the flights (I'm sure someone will be along in a minute to correct me if I'm wrong on this).

Cardiff flights did come at a surprise to me and I honestly think the route won't last more than a year. There must be a reason for not having any long-haul routes from Cardiff...only KLM seem to be able to make it work connecting to AMS. I also doubt any lounge improvements will be made, not only because the route is untested waters and therefore could be ultimately scrapped, but also because as mentioned Cardiff don't have a raft of premium/long-haul customers which lounges are designed for.

As it’s somewhere we will be travelling to regularly and we really like Qatar, this seemed great for us, but it seems we’ll need to keep trolling up to LHR.

Thanks for the comments.

Yes they are; but the Flybe flight to CDG, and the wait for the slightly larger airframe (A380), doesn't appear until you enter the booking process.

The added sting is you get to pay HMRC band B APD for the flights (I'm sure someone will be along in a minute to correct me if I'm wrong on this).

Well you'd still have to pay APD on the direct ex-CWL to Doha flight too so that's not really an issue.

The only way to save would be to book CWL-CDG as separate tickets so only the lower band A APD would be due - but of course that adds all sorts of other complications.


The wiki page for CWL says that that they are going to expand the lounge area - linked press release so maybe they've just not started it yet?

Cardiff flights did come at a surprise to me and I honestly think the route won't last more than a year. There must be a reason for not having any long-haul routes from Cardiff...only KLM seem to be able to make it work connecting to AMS. I also doubt any lounge improvements will be made, not only because the route is untested waters and therefore could be ultimately scrapped, but also because as mentioned Cardiff don't have a raft of premium/long-haul customers which lounges are designed for.

I would imagine that with the ongoing blockage in the middle east, they have got a problem with too many aircraft for too few routes they're allowed to fly to.

As it’s somewhere we will be travelling to regularly and we really like Qatar, this seemed great for us, but it seems we’ll need to keep trolling up to LHR.

Thanks for the comments.

It’s a pain gilly. I live a merry 25 mins drive away from CWL and had hoped things would improve after WeG bought out the previous Spanish owners ( who had charged extortionate landng fees thus ,securing the future of BRS which has expanded massively in recent years ) .
Sadly it hasn’t ( even with the Flybe routes and the heralded Qatar connections).
DL