Dublin Airport Authority has welcomed the announcement by Ryanair that it will operate seven new routes and increase frequencies on 21 existing services at Dublin Airport this winter. Meanwhile, Cork Airport has welcomed the increased frequency on Ryanair’s Cork – Stansted route for winter 2014 to three flights daily from two flights daily.
Ryanair will operate new winter services to Basel, Bucharest, Cologne, Lisbon, Marrakesh, Nice, and Prague. It has also indicated that it will add capacity to a range of existing services to Britain and continental Europe for the winter season.
“We are delighted that Ryanair is expanding its winter schedule at Dublin Airport,” said Vincent Harrison, Dublin Airport Managing Director. “These seven new winter routes and the increased frequencies on 21 existing Ryanair services provide the travelling public with greater choice in terms of routes served and also the number of flight options that are available to them.
“Dublin Airport has already had a very strong start to the year, with passenger numbers up 9% for the first two months – which is equivalent to about 200,000 extra passengers. These additional Ryanair services will help underpin that growth and hopefully carry it into 2015.”
Dublin Airport will welcome 16 new services for this summer, with new long-haul and short-haul routes due to begin soon. “We will have new short-haul routes from Ryanair, Aer Lingus and Luxair and significant increases in capacity on existing routes from customers such as CityJet, Lufthansa, and Turkish Airlines,” Vincent added.
“Meanwhile, our long-haul traffic is set to break records this year with new routes and additional capacity. We will see a 17% increase in North American seat capacity this year and a major increase in flights to the Middle East, with both Emirates and Etihad going double daily later this year.”
Passenger numbers at Dublin Airport increased by almost 6% to 20.2 million last year, which was significantly ahead of the European average.
Cork to London Stansted
Meanwhile, Cork Airport has welcomed the increased frequency on Ryanair’s Cork – London Stansted route for winter 2014 to three flights daily from two flights daily.
Niall MacCarthy, Managing Director, said: “Cork Airport welcomes this excellent response by Ryanair to strong consumer demand for additional flights to London from Cork. This increase will see the number of daily flights from Cork to Stansted grow by 50%. The extra capacity will be hugely beneficial for tourism and business connectivity across the wider south of Ireland region.”
