Carwyn Jones is the First Minister of Wales while Roger Lewis is the chairman of Cardiff Airport. But they could have been been Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood at a Rolling Stones press conference when everyone wants to interview Keith Richard.
Al Baker doesn't hold back:
▪ The blockade "is illegal", imposed by people "we regarded as brethren".
▪ The hotel in which he's stayed in Cardiff (in the penthouse suite) isn't sufficiently luxurious so he's entered into discussions overnight with his Welsh hosts to build a five-star hotel in the city. (A division of the airline currently owns five hotels overseas, but plans to expand that to 50 in the next few years.).
▪ His vision for QR's future is "growth, growth, growth".
Cardiff, with its catchment area of 6.4 million people in Wales and south-west England (Gloucestershire, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall) who usually travel to London to fly overseas, is the fifth QR destination in Britain. (Though Gatwick will soon be the sixth, following Heathrow, Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, with Glasgow and Belfast on the horizon.)
On average, Qatar Airways takes delivery of a new plane every 10 days (though as Al Baker boasts, "In the past week", the airline has taken delivery of one A380, one A350 and a Boeing 777.)
The average age of the current 220 QR fleet is five years – and Al Baker's aim in ordering all these new planes is to bring the average age even lower.
Perhaps the most interesting question, as far as overseas fliers are concerned, is why QR has concentrated on so many "secondary airports" such as Cardiff.
Al Baker's reply was succinct. "Secondary airports is where the business is. Main airports markets have already been saturated and are over capacity and restrictions in slot timings, so the option is to go to secondary airports which have plans and opportunity for growth."
If that means being able to fly closer to where you want to spend your holiday, that's a good thing. Isn't it?
The writer travelled as a guest of Qatar Airways.
Tag: Qatar News