Passenger numbers at Cardiff Airport grew faster than almost anywhere in the UK this spring, up 16% in a quarter when the country’s airports broke records, new figures from the aviation regulator show.
The Civil Aviation Authority says more than 81 million passengers passed through UK airports between April and June, a record for the quarter, though up only just over 120,000 on the same period last year.
Against that broadly flat national picture, Cardiff’s 16% rise made it one of the airports with the largest proportional growth in the country, ahead of Newcastle and Inverness on 8%, the regulator’s data shows.
It extends a strong run for the Welsh Government-owned airport: CAA data for the first three months of the year showed Cardiff’s 24% rise was the second largest proportional increase in the country, behind only Southend, as the airport passed a million passengers in 12 months for the first time since Covid.
The growth comes from a small base. Cardiff handled 162,120 passengers between January and March, against 18.9 million at Heathrow, and remains among the smallest of the regulator’s 25 reporting airports.
Sun, budget airlines and 2.25 million extra low-cost seats
The CAA says the quarter’s growth across the UK was driven by low-cost airlines, with Ryanair and Jet2 both carrying 9% more passengers than a year earlier.
Together with easyJet, the three budget carriers flew 2.25 million more passengers than in the same three months of 2025.
Holidaymakers went looking for the sun. More than one million additional passengers travelled to Western Europe, the regulator says, with Madrid up 15% and Barcelona up 11%.
The most popular destinations of the quarter were Dublin, Palma de Mallorca, Amsterdam, Alicante and Malaga.
Alicante and Malaga’s place in that top five is bittersweet for Wales: Vueling confirmed last week it will drop both its Spanish routes from Cardiff for the winter, ending flights the IAG-owned budget airline has operated from the Welsh capital for more than a decade.
The airline says it is “still too early to confirm” whether it will return next summer. Cardiff Airport said it was disappointed by the decision and urged booked passengers to contact Vueling directly, while pointing out that TUI and Ryanair will keep flying to Alicante from Cardiff this winter.
Dubai numbers halve as Middle East conflict bites
The record quarter came despite the conflict in the Middle East, which saw the Foreign Office advise against non-essential travel to the region until 18 June.
Passenger numbers to Dubai halved compared with last year, the CAA says, with the United Arab Emirates down 42% overall, Qatar down 45% and Kuwait down 68%.
The slide began before the spring: CAA figures show traffic to Dubai was already down 20% in the first three months of the year.
Further east the picture was very different: China was up 11%, India up 5%, and Pakistan up more than 300%.
The Gulf slump lands on an old bruise in Wales. Qatar Airways suspended its Cardiff to Doha route during Covid and has never brought it back, a service that gave the Welsh airport its only direct link to the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Australasia.
The Welsh Conservatives demanded its return be made the Welsh Government’s top priority as long ago as March 2023, when the airline restored the Birmingham route it had suspended at the same time as Cardiff’s. Three years on, with the CAA reporting Qatar Airways’ UK passenger numbers down 25% in the first quarter and traffic to Qatar down 45% this spring, the wait goes on.
There is one measure where Cardiff sits below the pack. The regulator’s most recent airport-level punctuality figures, covering the first quarter, put 75% of Cardiff flights within 15 minutes of schedule, under the UK average of 77%.
‘On course for another record-breaking year’
A spokesperson for the Civil Aviation Authority said demand for flying “remains high, as passengers adjust their travel plans around global events”, adding that the results kept the sector “on course for another record-breaking year”.
Aviation minister Keir Mather said the figures showed the industry’s “strength and resilience”, and said the UK Government had given airlines “greater flexibility to lock in flight schedules early” during the conflict, with fewer than 1% of flights cancelled at short notice between May and July.
Karen Dee, chief executive of airports trade body AirportsUK, said it was “good to see that air travel has continued to grow, despite ongoing challenges in places like the Middle East”.
A global award within reach in October
The strong quarter caps a year in which the airport was shortlisted for a global award voted for by the airlines themselves: it is one of five finalists in the under five million passengers category at the Routes World Awards, alongside Bratislava, Cork, Shannon and Canada’s Halifax Stanfield.
The shortlist, announced last week, follows twelve months that brought WestJet’s direct Toronto service, a fourth TUI aircraft based at Cardiff and six new sunshine and ski routes. The airport’s only previous win came in 1998.
The winner is announced in Frankfurt on 22 October, where Cardiff’s route team will be meeting airlines about adding further services.
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