Call it from Cardiff to Barbados with love.
Jon Horne, chief executive of Cardiff Airport in Wales, is hailing plans by Sandals to start a Cardiff to Barbados charter in March next year.
As Horne saw it, the plans for the Barbados-Cardiff link and the decision by Germanwings, a low-cost carrier, to fly once a week from the Welsh Capital city to Dusseldorf, Germany, are a reward for diligence by his airport team and Cardiff as a whole.
“The ongoing success we have in attracting new services means the hard work of the team here (in Cardiff) is paying off,” he said in a statement. “It is also encouraging that airlines and tour operators are making these commitments to Cardiff Airport and to Wales and this gives us confidence that we are on the right track to achieve our goals” of making the City a major player in UK travel.
Germanwings, which is owned by the Lufthansa Group, is launching a weekly service to Dusseldorf in April while Sandals is introducing its first Barbados flight from Wales on March 9. It will be a fortnightly charter service to Grantley Adams International Airport, according to the Cardiff Airport.
In addition, P&O cruises’ new chartered flights to Barbados from Cardiff in January and February were sold out “a matter of weeks after being launched earlier this year,” according to the airport and Walesonline.
Wales is positioning Cardiff to be an even more popular destination and departure point for tourists travelling outside of the United Kingdom to such places as Germany, Spain, Barbados, France and Switzerland.
Cardiff, the largest city in Wales, is also the tenth largest city in the United Kingdom. A significant tourist center, it is the most popular destination in Wales and is ranked sixth in the world in National Geographic’s tourist destinations. As the county town of Glamorgan, it is home to the Glamorgan County team which made Tony Cordle, a Barbadian, its first overseas fast bowler in the early 1960s.
He eventually played more than 300 matches for the county, took at least 700 wickets and between 1981 and 83 was Glamorgan’s cricket coach.
