Cardiff Airport has just experienced its busiest period in 8 years, with a ground-breaking 1.488 million passengers choosing to fly from Cardiff over the past 12 months, a growth of 10% year on year.

This exciting news comes as a result of airliners offering an increased choice of destinations, more seats and improved flight times with greater value for money when choosing to fly from Cardiff.

With double digit growth expected to continue in 2018/19, travellers can expect more choice with daily direct flights from Qatar Airways this May, which will also be offering connections to key destinations via a Middle Eastern hub to Australia, China, South Africa, India, New Zealand and beyond.

Passengers can also expect to see an improved departures area and improvements to car parking, which will be unveiled later in April 2018.

Some of the new destinations launched over the last 12 months include Madrid with brand new airline Iberia Express at Cardiff Airport; Faro with Ryanair; Venice and Rome with Flybe plus Guernsey with Blue Islands – Flybe’s franchise partner.

Debra Barber, CEO of Cardiff Airport, said:

“The past 12 months have seen increased choice for our passengers, exciting announcements for the seasons ahead and even more improvements to the customer experience. In addition to the huge Qatar Airways announcement, we’ve also welcomed a third aircraft to the Flybe base and look forward to its third summer of flying customers to 21 destinations across the UK & Europe.

In September it was announced that 5* airline Qatar Airways will begin operating a regular service to Doha, Qatar from May 1^st. This direct flight to the Middle East will offer customers opportunities to travel onwards to destinations including Australia, New Zealand, Africa and Asia from Cardiff.

The ten most popular destinations in 2017/18 were: