What Would You Want From Cardiff Airport Development? Read My Exciting Ideas

CROESO - Welcome

I've never been to Cardiff airport. I didn't even know they had an airport. It's not in Cardiff, airports normally aren't - you occasionally get helicopters alanding in cities but mostly airports are outside.

Cardiff Airport is about 30 minutes away from the city centre. Every twenty minutes the Cardiff Airport Express bus sets off from the airport to the city centre.

If you are travelling by car, on the M4 from London, or further into Wales, it is 13 miles from Junction 33. The area is the Vale of Glamorgan.

Cardiff from the train. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

I take the train through Cardiff about twice a year (into Wales and out), and have done for at least ten years.

To get me to visit Cardiff airport from London, paying for a flight, would mean I would need
1 quick check-in with hand baggage; cheaper price than the train from Paddington.

However, many people do fly in, about a million a year. From Cardiff Airport you can connect by direct flight to Dublin and many other cities for a city break. It's not all hops. Their website tells you that you can also do an indirect flight with a stopover, going on to as far away as the Middle East, and Malaysia.

I would like to see an Aviation Museum with quizzes; some interactive activities on a Welsh theme with a huge model of Wales and lots of photos and quotations and life stories of Welsh people such as Dylan Thomas. Add signs to transport to attractions all over Wales. Show photos of events involving the airport: NATO Wales Summit, Rugby World Cup and UEFA Champions League final. (UEFA stand for Union of European Football Associations.)

Conference Centre
I would like to see a conference center at the airport, part of the big hotel or beside it. The conference centre could be underground, like the conference centre I went to at a hotel in Brighton, England.

Changi airport, Singapore, is full of flowering plants. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Changi's Award-Winning Attractions
The airport could be a kind of theme park. Go and look at the website of Changi airport's current terminals (which include a butterfly garden). The butterfly garden is stunning. Giant butterflies are attracted to huge cut tree stamps. Detailed descriptions explain everything you would like to know about butterflies.

Butterfly Garden at Changi Airport. See Wikipedia.

Changi Airport terminal building with indoor gardens. From Wikipedia.

The plan for Changi airport's next terminal.

A proposed new Changi terminal includes a giant fountain and waterfall. I've seen the outside started, as I drive past.

In Cardiff, build at least two storeys underground to make more space; and a safe refuge area - with an escape tunnel.

Airport Hotel Or Hotels!
The Draft Masterplan says the Cardiff development organizers are considering building a hotel, implying just one hotel.

However, Wales on line talks about a four-star hotel plus a budget hotel, which sounds a better option, pleasing more passengers.

My view is, don't just have one hotel, but two or three, at different prices. Better still, six types of accommodation, 1 to 5 star. Also have short term bunks, like the Japanese hotels, with alarms for people who want to sleep, rest, or hide away and shut eyes with their belongings secure, between flights.

Activities
Have a masterplan of connections with other airports so that people can plan a two centre holiday, staying at both airports in the airport hotels.

Run a Welsh language course at the airport, or even a three hour or one day course for business people, those relocating, or a weekend away.

Have an underground garden of things which can grow in the dark, such as mushrooms and potatoes, and serve them in the restaurants or export them freshly picked on flights to other countries, or as Welsh airline meals. Plus leeks.

How about a mascot, the flying sheep.

Welsh Music
I would hope to hear some recordings of Welsh music.
A Welsh male voice choir.
A Welsh harp.

This lady performed at Writers' Holiday in Fishguard, Wales, where I have seen her several years running.

I would like to hear a specially commissioned Welsh song - in English and Welsh so everybody can sing along. Something along the lines of Men of Harlech, Que Viva Espana or Take me back to Sorrento.

Bilingual Signs
I'm delighted to hear that all the signs are bilingual. The same applies to the motorway signs and the railway station signs. Before you reach your destination, as soon as the train or car crosses the border, you start to see the Welsh words. You think: I'm in another country, another language, I'm on holiday!

Welsh Food
See my posts on destinations in Wales, Welsh food and drink, learning the Welsh language. Please share links to your favourite posts.
Wales has Welsh cakes.

Welsh cake. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Welsh cake with butter. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Welsh Drink
Wales has wine and whisky.



















Penderyn whisky Distillery, Wales. Photo supplied by the Distillery. (I met the people who run it at an educational slide show at a wine and food show in Singapore.)

I've driven to Wales, I've taken the train from Paddington to Wales. Maybe it's time I took a flying visit.

What to See in Cardiff
Cardiff Castle.
Cardiff Museum - free!

Elsewhere around Wales -
If the Cardiff airport is not only a connection to Cardiff, but the gateway to Wales, you have lots to see. The Dylan Thomas boathouse and Dylan Thomas trails.

Fishguard's embroidery of the Last Invasion of Wales is fascinating. (A few feisty Welsh women in high black hats frightened off the French soldiers.)

Onward Train Connections
Heathrow and Changi airport both have underground railways into the capital city centre. Cardiff should have the same.

Instead of competing with the trains, the airlines and trains should co-operate on combined tickets. You could even do the travel equivalent of a triathlon. Fly into Cardiff. See Cardiff.

Take the train to Fishguard. See Fishguard.

Stay overnight at the old Fishguard Bay Hotel, where Liz Taylor and Richard Burton stayed, filming Moby Dick and Under Milk Wood.

Take the ferry from Fishguard to Ireland.

Bilingual sign on Cardiff Central railway station.

A million people fly into Cardiff, Wales. Now you know why.

Useful Websites
cardiff-airport.com
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/plans-new-hotels-cardiff-airport
http://www.changiairport.com/en/airport-experience/explore-changi/things-to-do-articles.html#recommend-4 (Shows the butterfly garden and giant sculpture and flower arrangements.)
visitwales.com
visitbritain.com
visitcardiff.com
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2018/04/where-to-find-welsh-whisky-and.html
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/days-out/regionwales/wales
https://www.duolingo.com/course/cy/en/Learn-Welsh-Online

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.