Aer Lingus takes off with six new routes

AER Lingus has announced six new destinations as well as increased frequency on existing routes which together will see an additional 86 flights per week offering a total of 15,000 extra seats.

The new flights are shared between Cork and Dublin Airports and will all be up and running by summer 2007.

From Cork, passengers will now be able to fly to Manchester, Madrid and Prague.

The five flights weekly to Manchester will begin in March while the other two destinations, to which flights will operate three times weekly, will come on stream next summer.

Flights from Dublin to Athens will commence from June 2007, operating three times weekly.

Dublin to Newcastle and Milan-Malpensa will operate for summer 2007 but frequency dates have not been given.

In addition, the airline has announced increased frequency on flights from Dublin to Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, Dubrovnik, Krakow, Madrid, Naples, Nice, Rennes, Riga and Seville, and from Cork to Birmingham, Faro and London Heathrow.

Dublin to Budapest, Geneva, Lisbon, Prague, Venice and Zurich will increase to daily flights.

The new flights bring to 65 the number of short haul routes Aer Lingus will operate for summer 2007

Announcing the expansion, Aer Lingus chief executive, Dermot Mannion said: “The increases respond to customer demand for our services and we look forward to continuing the expansion of our short-haul network from Ireland generally, and to the continued broadening of the network scope out of Cork.

“These new routes together with additional frequency on existing routes will offer choice and build on the success of our low fares, way better offering.”