Ryanair to announce two new routes from Cork

RYANAIR will announce two new routes from Cork to Scotland and England this morning.

The low-fares airline is expected to confirm that flights to Glasgow, Prestwick and East Midlands airport will start within weeks.

Airport management declined to comment ahead of the official announcement but it is understood that no special deals were offered to entice the airline.

The airport does offer all new airlines a five-year sliding discount deal on aviation charges in certain circumstances.

The announcement is a major boost for the airport, which has attracted some of eastern Europe’s top low-fares airlines to launch new routes out of Cork in recent months.

Today’s announcement will bring to six the number of Ryanair routes out of Cork.

It already bases two Boeing 737 aircraft at the airport and operates flights to Dublin, Liverpool, London Gatwick and London Stansted.

News of the new routes comes almost 18 months after the airline pulled the plug on its price-sensitive Cork to Liverpool route, and switched it to Kerry, in a row over increases in landing and airport charges at Cork.

Deputy chief executive Michael Cawley made that announcement in a blaze of publicity and blamed the Government’s handling of the airport’s debt situation for the hikes.

“The increases, which are a direct result of the debt which Cork airport has inherited as a result of its new Taj Mahal-like terminal, now makes the airport massively uncompetitive against its peer airports throughout Europe and has made other destinations for Ryanair much more attractive,” he said last March.

The decision could have cost the local economy up to €13 million and resulted in the loss of up to 20,000 tourists, he said.

But the airline quietly moved the route back to Cork within six months for “commercial reasons” and now operates one daily flight to Liverpool.

Landing and airport charges have not changed since the row.

Today’s new routes announcement will be seen as an endorsement by Ryanair of airport management’s pricing structure, and proof that Ryanair is keen to do more business in Cork.

There are now up to 40 scheduled routes out of Cork Airport and a further 20, including winter sun and ski destinations, will come on stream for the winter season.

Ryanair’s head of communications Peter Sherrard will announce details of the new flights’ times and scheduling at a press conference at the Cork Airport Hotel this morning.