Cardiff-based Veritair played host to a number of players and vips flying in for England’s FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Chelsea. The company acted as the handling agent at the municipal heliport, built three years ago with £3.75 million worth of public sector investment. “We had 182 passenger helicopter movements during the day, which came in mostly from the London area. These even included a tabloid newspaper which hired a helicopter to fly the ball in from London in a special glass box,” said operations director Julian Verity.

The purpose-built heliport is only a few moments away from the city centre according to Verity, who said: “As far as I know, there is no facility in Europe like this. We represent a potential role model for how heliport and helicopter infrastructure could mushroom in the UK. People flying in realise that Wales really has its act together.”

Veritair (a wholly owned subsidiary of British International Ltd.) leases the Cardiff heliport in its entirety and operates it not only as the company’s base but also a public facility on behalf of the county council.

He added: ”I went to the local authority with the proposal, to harness the helicopter as part of the transport infrastructure and they liked the idea. I tell people that it isn’t how many passengers we’re carrying but who we’re carrying, as they bring money not only into our facility but Wales as a whole.”\r

Verity told us that Wales had spent a lot of money putting the right infrastructure in place, including the home of the final. “The 72,000-seat Millennium Stadium has a number of important visitors which come in by helicopter and it has given us a great deal of business. On the FA Cup day we had 43 helicopters parked up here on our 13.5 acre site,” he said.