The future of Cardiff airport lies in long-haul flights, not competing with Bristol on short-haul destinations, according to the first minister of Wales.
The airport was bought by the Welsh government for £52 million last year and ministers have set aside £3m to spend on developing routes next year.
Germanwings last week announced it was ending a summer service between Cardiff and Dusseldorf in 2015 because the route did not meet its expectations.
First minister Carwyn Jones said the airport “will not lose money this year as it did in the previous financial year,” the BBC reported.
But Welsh Tory leader Andrew Davies said there were “substantial negatives” at the airport and “few new routes”.
At first minister’s questions, Jones said: “Bristol airport has been very successful in short-haul flights and in business flights and it would be very difficult to take Bristol on, if I can put it that way, in that regard.
“However, we do have great advantages over Bristol in terms of long-haul flights, in terms of the length of the runway, in terms of the 24-hour operation that we have.”
He said there was potential to widen Cardiff’s runway to accommodate the Airbus A380 superjumbo.
“So that’s where the advantages will come for us in the future,” Jone said.
But he warned that transatlantic routes were not a “holy grail”.
He said the Welsh government wanted private investors to buy shares in the airport and “there is interest” in forming a public-private partnership.
Passenger satisfaction had increased “enormously”, Jones said, adding that Welsh ministers were “very optimistic about the airport’s medium to long-term future”.
A British Airways A380 visited the airport for the first time last year, to test its ability to handle an aircraft of its size and prove it could cope in the event of a diversion.