Cork Airport has welcomes the announcement of a new route between Cork and Portugal, starting next winter.

Ryanair yesterday confirmed it was creating a new, twice-weekly service to Faro, a popular destination with winter sunseekers.

“Expanding routes from Cork Airport is always a priority, so we are delighted to see Ryanair giving customers an even wider selection of destinations to choose from during the next winter season,” said Kevin Cullinane, Head of Communications at Cork Airport.

The announcement was part of the launch of Ryanair’s Irish Winter 2018 schedule, which predicted the airline to grow by 5% in Ireland.

The service to Faro is one of nine routes Ryanair will operate from Cork in the winter. Others include a daily service to London Gatwick, a weekly service to Gran Canaria and a twice-weekly service to Malaga.

In total, the company announced nine new routes from Ireland and more flights on 11 other routes. It said it will deliver 15.6m customers per annum and support 11,700 jobs between Cork, Dublin, Shannon, Knock and Kerry airports.

President of the ITAA, Pat Dawson of Dawson Travel, congratulated the airline on its expanded schedule, saying: “Well done Ryanair on new routes and in particular the smaller airports - plenty of room to expand in Cork.” The new route comes as Cork Airport is seeing strong passenger growth, with numbers up 4% in 2017, and a further 4% growth forecasted this year. Ryanair expects to serve 915,000 passengers in Cork this year, up 3%.

Mr Cullinane said Cork Airport will continue to work with Ryanair to further develop new routes.