Record summer schedule as Ryanair announces five new routes from Cork Airport
The announcement puts Cork Airport well on track to becoming the first Irish state airport to fully restore its traffic to pre-pandemic levels. Picture: Dan Linehan
Ryanair has announced its biggest summer schedule from Cork Airport next year, with five new routes and increased frequency on 11 existing routes.
The announcement puts Cork Airport well on track to becoming the first Irish state airport to fully restore its traffic to pre-pandemic levels.
It handled 2.6m passengers in 2019 before the pandemic hit and passenger numbers plummeted.
But traffic has recovered strongly to a point where the airport expects to handle some 2.2m passengers this year — well ahead of the 1.8m forecasts at the start of the year, with 2.3-2.4m forecast for next year.
The passenger traffic has been driven mainly by Ryanair, the airport’s largest airline customer, which confirmed on Thursday lunchtime it will fly from Cork to 29 destinations across Europe from March to October next year.
It announced new services to La Rochelle, Rome, Seville, Venice Treviso and East Midlands (Derby, England) and also announced increased weekly frequencies on 11 routes, including its services to Alicante, which will increase to four flights a week. Ryanair will fly to Faro eight times a week, to Liverpool six times a week and to Palma five times a week.
The low fares giant will operate 270 weekly flights in total to and from Cork across next year’s summer season, representing a 20% growth on this year’s summer schedule.
The record schedule will be underpinned by the addition of a third Ryanair aircraft to its Cork Airport base, which it said represents a total investment of €300m and will support over 1,300 local jobs.
Ryanair DAC’s chief executive Eddie Wilson made the announcement at a press conference at the airport on Thursday lunchtime.
He said the airline’s commitment to growing traffic and increasing connectivity to regional economies would ensure Cork becomes the first Irish State airport to fully restore pre-pandemic traffic levels.
“The further 20% growth that Ryanair will deliver to Cork next summer is driven by Cork Airport’s long-term commitment to maintain competitive airport charges, providing the cost certainty for airlines to invest and grow in the region,” he said.
“Regional development must be underpinned by competitive costs, which has ensured that Cork has secured airline capacity that could have easily gone elsewhere in Europe.”
Cork Airport’s director Niall MacCarthy said with more than 1.4m Ryanair seats on sale next summer, ranging from vibrant city destinations like Rome, Valencia, Venice, Bordeaux, Milan, Edinburgh, London, and Liverpool to sun destinations such as Faro, Malaga, Lanzarote, Sardinia, Alicante and many more, there is a superb route offering from Cork Airport with Ryanair.
“Everyone who flies from Cork Airport knows how convenient, quick, reliable, and friendly the service is," he said.
“We recommend passengers to bear that convenience in mind when booking family holidays in 2023.
"For passengers across Munster and the South of Ireland, Cork Airport offers the best choice of destinations next summer.
“I would like to thank Ryanair for its continued commitment to Cork Airport and we look forward to continuing our very strong business relationship, to improve the route offering from Munster’s busiest airport.”
To celebrate the summer routes announcement, Ryanair has launched a limited-time seat sale with fares from just €29.99 for travel from April 1 2023, to the end of October 2023, which must be booked by midnight on Saturday, December 17, on www.ryanair.com.
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