Air Wales
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Air Wales (Welsh: Awyr Cymru) was an airline based in Cardiff, Wales. It operated scheduled regional services throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. On 23 April 2006 Air Wales ceased all operations. However, Awyr Cymru - an entirely unrelated private charter company - is still operating. See www.awyrcymru.com for further details.
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History
Air Wales was established in January 1997 with the assistance of Swansea property financier Roy Thomas and started operations in January 2000. Initially based at Pembrey Airport in West Wales and operating two aeroplanes, Air Wales expanded to employ over 120 personnel, including 45 flight deck staff, 20 engineers and 20 cabin crew. It revives the name of an airline from the 1970s which was eventually integrated into Air UK.During 2004 Air Wales gave up all routes out of Swansea to concentrate on routes out of Cardiff. During February 2006 Air Wales gave up all routes from Plymouth to focus on more popular routes and international routes.
On April 23rd 2006 the airline ceased all scheduled services and will supposedly focus on charter and freight operations. However this is thought to be smokescreen as many staff have discovered that all the aircraft will be returned to their lessors, indicating that the airline will stop flying entirely. It is thought the airline entered into 11th hour talks with rival carriers to push through a merger to save the business, but the talks failed and a day later the airline announced its demise. Immediately two of the rival carriers AW had been talking to announced that they would serve all of the AW routes from Cardiff from the day after AW stopped flying. Later Newquay flights were taken over. Whether services from Exeter will resume is unknown.
Services
Air Wales operated the following services (at February 2006):
- Cardiff to:
- * Brussels
- * Rennes
- * Aberdeen
- * Beauvais
- * Belfast City
- * Cork
- * Dublin
- * Jersey
- * Newcastle
- Cork to:
- * Cardiff
- * Exeter
- * Newquay
- Exeter to:
- * Cork
- Newquay to:
- * Cork
Air Wales also operated services for bmibaby as follows (at March 2006):
- Cardiff to:
- * Paris ( CDG )
Fleet
At January 2006 the Air Wales fleet consisted of 5 ATR 42-300 aircraft: G-SSEA (meaning Swansea), G-WLSH (meaning Welsh), G-CDFF (meaning Cardiff), G-KNNY and G-TAWE (River Tawe).Air Wales had previously operated Dornier 228 aircraft.
In March 2006, Air Wales fleet average age was 13.4 years.
External links
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