Increased routes at Cork Airport helping to contribute to Ryanair’s successful summer numbers

CORK Airport has been hailed as an important contributor to Ryanair's ongoing success

Recently released figures showed that Ryanair operated over 102,000 flights in July 2023. Their traffic last month increased by 11% as they carried over 18 million passengers in one month for the first time ever.

Overall, Ryanair carried a total of 18.7m passengers across their 37 markets throughout Europe.

Jade Kirwan, head of communications with Ryanair, praised Cork Airport for helping Ryanair to grow strongly.

“18.7m passengers is a phenomenal amount to carry. It was the third successive month of record passenger numbers.

“This is a very strong indicator that things are going well and that we have grown strongly since covid.

“Cork was definitely a big contributor to our summer success. 

"This year we have our biggest summer schedule in Cork,” she said.

Ms Kirwan said Ryanair continue to increase the number of routes out of Cork Airport.

“In Cork, we have grown 20% versus the summer of 2022, which is significant," she said. "We have about 270 weekly flights in and out of Cork now.

“We have based our third aircraft there which represents a $300m investment, and we are supporting about 1,600 jobs locally in Cork which is massive.

“We bring in passengers who spend €1.5bn in the Irish economy every year which helps to create a massive jobs boost. It is important that we are supporting that regional development." 

She highlighted the range of flights they operate from Cork. 

“We have put on more UK capacity. We have 29 routes in total connecting to the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. We have five entirely new routes operating this summer as well which are Seville, La Rochelle, Rome, Venice, and East Midlands in the UK.

“They are all going very strongly.

“We have also upped the frequency on eight of the routes that we operate out of Cork because they are going so well." 

She said the UK is a key destination for Cork Airport. 

"There is a strong demand which includes weekend getaways," she said. "With the Premier League due to resume very soon, we have seen strong bookings for the UK in August and September.

“Cork Airport would also be our main hub to get Irish passengers to Italy." 

Ms Kirwan said Ryanair, who will be launching their new winter routes in the coming weeks, strives to make flights out of Cork Airport as ‘seamless’ as possible.

“We are always trying to improve the customer experience generally and make things more convenient for passengers.

“We have introduced express bag check-in kiosks in Cork.

“We really do commend Cork Airport and we have a great relationship with them. It is always a seamless journey to travel through Cork Airport”.