Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 17 January 2023.

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Photo of Andrew RT Davies Andrew RT Davies Conservative 1:47, 17 January 2023

First Minister, after £0.25 billion, the airport sadly has fewer passengers now than it has had for a very long time. Yes, COVID intervened to obviously affect all airports, but if you take Bristol Airport, it has seen a 22 per cent decline in its passenger numbers but still handles close to 7 million passengers. If you take Birmingham Airport, another competitor, they have seen a 33 per cent decline, and still handle 8.5 million passengers. It is a fact that no airport that I can find has had such a generosity of Government money made available to it—£0.25 billion—and had such poor outcomes achieved. What are the new plans available to make sure that that £225 million is protected, and that, ultimately, you can resurrect the airport, because I think the taxpayer, in fairness, deserves to know is this a bad investment that is going to continue to go wrong, or do you have a long-term plan that can resurrect Cardiff Airport, which, obviously, you acquired back in 2013?