Bristol Airport has alleged that subsidies worth £205m to be implemented over the span of a decade offered by the Welsh government to Cardiff Airport through the 2024 budget is unlawful at a tribunal held on February 10th. The lawsuit, which has been brought to the Competition Appeal Tribunal, have been challenged by Bristol Airport Limited in Bristol Airport v. Welsh Ministers as violating the Subsidy Control Act of 2022, on the grounds that it failed to evidence that Cardiff International Airport Limited was at risk of imminent bankruptcy without the subsidies, that proper procedure for considering the eventuality had not been followed, and that it has violated efforts through the act to prohibit subsidies for air routes.
Cardiff Airport has rejected these allegations, defending the subsidies as part of an effort to allow the airport’s expansion and arguing that the funds for route development were necessary as part of standard practice within these deals.
Cardiff Airport is the sole airport currently operating commercial and cargo flights in Wales, and has been open for commercial flights since 1952, but has long had issues with declining use, peaking in 2007 and having languished below a million since 2020. Bristol Airport, meanwhile, is currently well above its 2019 figures, surpassing 10,000,000 passengers in 2025, with the airport’s brief to the Tribunal stating that more of its passengers come from South Wales than go to Cardiff Airport.
Since 2013, Cardiff Airport has been directly managed by the Welsh government over its performance but has continued to decline since. Bristol Airport, meanwhile, is currently a private enterprise, and has been since a majority share was purchased from Bristol Council by FirstBus in 1997, with the largest number of shares held by Macquarie Asset Management, an Australian banking and financial services group. With the high number of Welsh passengers, Bristol Airport has also argued that the subsidies pose a large and unequal threat to their passenger base, both in Cardiff’s offerings of flights and where the passengers fly from.
The subsidies, which were implemented under Eluned Morgan in 2024, were implemented with the intent that Cardiff Airport would use it for investments to upgrade services to deal with higher foot traffic and to reduce carbon emissions. As per Ken Skates, Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure, “there are planned investments in the Airport’s existing terminal building and other infrastructure to ensure it can accommodate more comfortably the higher number of passengers whilst also reducing the carbon footprint of its ground operations”.
However, the official rationale behind its subsidy downplays this connection, describing the subsidies as being necessary to help advance the airport’s international profile, to tie it to nearby transport and water industries, and to help with encouraging the creation of new routes, a key area challenged by Bristol Airport Limited.
Plaid Cymru were willing to back the spirit of a nationalised airport, with Peredur Owen Griffiths stating that “we, as a nation, deserve a national airport that we can be proud of” in a question to Eluned Morgan as per First Ministers’ Questions in October of 2025.
The Welsh Liberal Democrats and Conservatives were both critical of the subsidy, and have both called for the privatisation of Cardiff International Airport. Sam Rowlands, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure and representative for the Welsh Conservatives, stated that “Labour and Plaid Cymru have already sunk more than £200 million of taxpayers’ money into this failing nationalised airport...even more public money will be wasted on legal costs”.
At the time of reporting, nothing further has developed.