US flights from Cork face ‘barriers’

Efforts are being made to secure a transatlantic carrier to operate a route from Cork, but there are significant barriers, according to the chairman of the Dublin Airport Authority, Pádraig Ó Ríordáin.

As such, it is unlikely, but not impossible, that Cork Airport will be successful.

“We would love to have a transatlantic flight from Cork into the East Coast of the United States, but I think we need to be realistic about that. There are a number of limitations that stop us; because of the length of the runway in Cork, there is only one aircraft that could actually fly to the east coast and that is a [Boeing] 757, which has 205 passengers, a relatively small plane. If you think about it, there are a whole load of immediate impediments from an airline’s point of view,” said Mr Ó Ríordáin.