Aer Lingus has today announced a number of new routes and increased frequency of flights to European destinations from next summer.
In a statement the airline said it was going to start a new service to Athens from June 2007. The thrice-weekly service will be the airline's scheduled service to Greece.
A new service from Cork to Manchester will start at the same time and will see five flights a week. Passengers traveling through Cork will also be able to fly to Madrid and Prague on thrice-weekly flights from next summer.
Existing services to Budapest, Geneva, Lisbon, Prague, Venice and Zurich from Dublin will be increased to daily flights, the airline said.
Other routes to see increased frequency are those from Dublin to Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, Dubrovnik, Krakow, Madrid, Naples, Nice, Rennes, Riga and Seville.
Dermot Mannion, Aer Lingus chief executive, said: "These new routes together with additional frequency on existing routes will offer more choice and build on the success of our low fares, way better offering".
The new routes bring to 65 the number of short haul routes the airline will operate from next June.
The airline also announced traffic statistics for September today, which showed overall passenger numbers up 6.4 per cent to 777,000.
Short-haul passenger numbers grew 8.9 per cent in September, with an load factor of 80 per cent, down 2.2 percentage points on the same time last year.