Wales' First Minister, Eluned Morgan has said she is "frustrated" by progress at Cardiff Airport. The First Minister was taking part in a live readers' question and answer session with WalesOnline. You can watch that back here. Topics including the tourism tax, Senedd reform, the NHS, and the threat from Nigel Farage's Reform UK. When asked if Cardiff Airport was a "failed project" she said she was "frustrated". Since 2013, when the Welsh Government bought Cardiff Airport for £52m, it has invested a total of £181 million in Cardiff Airport. It was recently announced the chief executive Spencer Birns had left his role. The First Minister said: "We have been really frustrated by some of the situation with Cardiff Airport. We were starting to get somewhere, pre-pandemic and it all fell back and trying to rebuild it since then. I think its really important for us to have an airport in Wales. I think it would be a difficult situation for us to be one of the only countries in the world without an international airport. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here "We wouldn't be able to host things like the UEFA cup or the big events here in the Millennium Stadium and those things bring in a huge amount of money compared to the investment in the airport. "I know a lot of work is being done to try attract new airlines in, it's also important for the economy in and around that area, so it's not just the tourism side of things, its really important for the economy in and around the area. I think it's important not to just focus about 'can I go on holiday from there' but I think we would all love to use Cardiff Airport more, they just need to land more airlines coming into it". In March 2021, the Welsh Government wrote off £42.6m of Cardiff Airport’s £69.8m commercial loan debt and awarded the airport a £42.6m grant. As of January 2025, the outstanding debt was £35.5 million. This includes interest, which is added to the balance each month. The most recent annual figures show Cardiff Airport had 881,000 passengers pass through its terminal in 2024. That is up 5% on 2024 however it is less than half the airport's peak of more than 2m passengers, which it hit in 2006. Cardiff is now only the 19th largest airport in the UK by passenger numbers, carrying just 0.3% of UK air passengers. It is less than a tenth of the size of Bristol Airport, which was once perceived as a rival but hosted 10.6m passengers last year.