Cork Airport expects over 111,000 extra passengers this year

Cork Airport expects passenger numbers to grow by more than 111,000 this year as new services, including Norwegian Air’s transatlantic flights, take off.

The gateway’s head of communications, Kevin Cullinane, said on Thursday that 50,000 people will travel through there over the Easter weekend.

In 2016, Cork reported that passenger numbers grew 8 per cent to 2.23 million. It expects this to grow by a further 5 per cent, or 111,500, this year as several new routes are launched.

Providence

Cork will get its first transatlantic service when Norwegian Air International begins serving Providence, Rhode Island from the airport next July.

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Wow Air is also planning to fly to Reykjavik from Cork this summer. This will offer connections to 10 cities across the US and Canada.

“Over the first quarter of this year, we saw an increase on 2016 and this trend will continue as our new routes take-off from May,” Mr Cullinane said.

He noted that the airport had seen a noticeable increase in the numbers travelling to Spain and Portugal this Easter. The holiday weekend is usually a busy time for the airport.