Cardiff Heliport is trebling its operations staff to cope with the arrival of dozens of helicopters for the FA Cup final on May 13.

The heliport, which is operated by Veritair for Cardiff County Council, is expecting fans to arrive in more than 50 helicopters for one of the biggest days in the English football calendar.

The helicopters, many carrying fans from London, will be allocated landing slots from around 0930

and there could be as many as 200 movements. Last year's cup final produced some 182 movements in a single day.

Operations staff report that the normal rota of 10 staff could be expanded to 30 in order to cope with the extra traffic.

The Football Association confirmed that this year's FA Cup final would take place at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium after the company building the new Wembley Stadium in London was unable to guarantee that the stadium would be ready by May 13.

Cardiff Heliport is located two miles south east of Cardiff City Centre and facilities include a fully-equipped conference room, JAR 145 engineering, first floor vip lounge with viewing balcony and separate catering. Visiting vips have included pop star Rod Stewart.

Cardiff Heliport can look forward to more football-related traffic 'bonuses.' The FA has confirmed that its end-of-season play-off finals will now take place in Cardiff.