Niall MacCarthy: Our ‘small airport’ is going places

In the lead up to Christmas, you’d scarcely find a more heartwarming, joyful and happy place than Cork Airport.

Simply stand in our Arrivals area and you would witness the sheer emotion of family reunions, where loved ones touch down after extended periods abroad and return home to spend Christmas in various parts of Munster and beyond.

You’ll often hear people comparing it to the opening scenes of that fabled festive film, Love Actually, where actor Hugh Grant, narrating, describes the atmosphere in London Heathrow Airport. “Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the Arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport … General opinion is starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere...”

Love is a very important sentiment here at Cork Airport. The more astute readers out there will know that our airport slogan is “Love Taking Off”.

In the late 80s and early 90s, a genius marketing slogan for Cork Airport was created. Set in a bright red heart shape, the airport was known as “Small Airport. Big Heart”. Our current airport logo and slogan is a direct nod to that iconic and familiar brand of yesteryear.

While Cork Airport certainly could have been described as a small airport in the late 80s and early 90s, things have changed massively since – and there is more change to come.

In 2025, Cork Airport experienced its busiest year in its history with over 3.45 million passengers. A total of six new routes were added to our ever-expanding route network.

Next year, passengers from Munster, south Leinster and beyond can look forward to even more connectivity to some of Europe’s biggest and busiest hub airports served by some of the world’s most recognisable airlines. New routes to Nice, Santiago de Compostela and Antalya will start in the summer, and our Prague route will run year-round.

As our passenger numbers grow (they’ve grown by one million in the last 10 years), and as the population in the wider Cork metropolitan area grows, our airport infrastructure needs to grow too. That’s why we announced a €200 million capital development plan in May, 2025. The plan sets out a range of different projects, each geared towards expanding our facilities, to enable further sustained growth into the years ahead.

Anyone who has passed through the airport since May will see the progress we have made already. From a standing start eight months ago, we have completed two significant construction projects in full – namely a new oversized baggage facility and the construction of a new staff and goods screening area at our Gate 19. Key to further expansion is the construction of our new mezzanine floor, which will be the location of our new passenger security screening area. With a completion date of December, 2026, and work well advanced with steel supports already in place from our basement area, we’re going to introduce the most modern and efficient security screening equipment. This will mean that passengers won’t need to remove their liquids or electronics from their hand luggage.

A new fast-track lane will also be introduced, enabling an even speedier service than the fantastic one that we already provide.

Our Arrivals area will also undergo a significant refurbishment, with a new café/bar, new car hire facilities and a new retail unit.

And that’s not all. The enduring popularity of Cork Airport as an airport of choice has meant that we need to expand our car parking facilities. Over 700 new long-term spaces will be constructed next year. We’re also going to build a new solar car port over our Holiday Blue car park, which will generate up to 20% of the airport’s electricity needs.

This represents the best use of land for solar development and will cover a significant number of cars whilst parked.

After 2026, we’re going to be focusing on some other key projects like more boarding gates, an expanded duty-free shop and a bigger and better executive lounge.

Further down the line, we’ll demolish the old terminal and construct a new pier, which will add even more boarding gates and aircraft parking stands.

We’re committed to efficient management of these various projects in the capital development plan. We have an excellent track record of delivering key infrastructure projects – on-time and on-budget. The full reconstruction of our runway in 2021 was a key example of that and our passengers, airline customers, airport stakeholders and the wider business community can have full confidence in us to deliver those projects, efficiently and cost-effectively.

Time and time again, our passengers compliment the efficient service, the friendly staff, the swift airport experience and the sheer convenience of flying from their local airport. That’s why Cork Airport was awarded the title of Europe’s Regional Airport by Airport Council International (ACI) Europe earlier this year. The accolade was awarded to Cork Airport for the third time in a decade.

With the various developments that are underway – will the famous airport experience that our passengers have grown to love change in any way? Well, I can safely say here and now that it won’t and in fact, it will become even more efficient, even more enjoyable and even more convenient!

The once small airport with the big heart is going places and now contributes over €1 billion to the Irish economy. We know the love our passengers have for the airport, and we know that they, along with many more new passengers, will love the airport even more as we journey along the most exciting phase in our 65-year history.

Niall MacCarthy is the Managing Director of Cork Airport, Chair of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation, and serves on the board of Visit Cork.