Tourism Ireland says the number of seats available on air services into and out of the island of Ireland this winter is higher than ever.
It says almost 280,000 seats on direct scheduled services are available each week — an increase of 10 per cent on last year.
The number of seats available to the Republic each week from Britain is up 11 per cent, with low cost airlines accounting for over half of all the cross-channel capacity.
Tourism Ireland said there was 14 per cent rise in seats from the North American market, which the group say is close to restoring the transatlantic capacity lost since 2001.
Scheduled capacity from continental Europe continues to grow significantly with the number of direct routes from European cities increasing by nearly a third over last Winter, it said.
Routes from France, Spain and Italy continue to show strong growth.
Tourism Ireland's head of research, Mr Mark Henry, said: "While much of this growth is as a result of increasing outbound demand from Ireland, nevertheless it creates additional opportunities for Tourism Ireland to tap into the strong potential evident in these markets".