Cork Airport recorded a 10% increase in passenger numbers in February when compared to the same month last year.

The news comes as Ryanair announced today a new twice-weekly service from Cork to Katowice, Poland, as part of its Winter 2019 schedule.

There are now 52 routes on offer from Cork Airport to the UK, Continental Europe and the east coast of the USA, along with daily long-haul connectivity through major European hub airports.

Cork Airport Managing Director, Niall MacCarthy, said: “Cork Airport is proud to report passenger numbers of 151,000 last month, an increase of 14,000 when compared to February 2018.

"We are seeing a keen interest from passengers in continental European destinations, including Aer Lingus’ new year-round service to Lisbon and the daily Air France service to Paris, which has strong onward connections.

“March is also indicating strong growth and this St. Patrick’s Weekend we will welcome 40,000 passengers through Cork Airport. In total, 2.6 million will use Cork Airport this year, a projected growth of 8%. This makes us Ireland’s fastest growing airport and the country’s busiest and best-connected airport after Dublin in the south of Ireland.”

Cork Airport has welcomed nine new routes in the past year. Along with the new Katowice, Poland service, commencing October 2019, Ryanair has also announced new services to Naples, Budapest, Malta, Poznań and London Luton from Cork Airport in the past 12 months.

The airline’s passenger numbers at Cork are forecast to rise by 17% in 2019, its largest increase among all Irish airports. Aer Lingus has also added Nice and Dubrovnik to its summer 2019 schedule while Air France has upgraded its daily service between Cork and Paris with a larger aircraft to add more capacity.

Mr MacCarthy added: “Connectivity from Cork Airport extends even further than our 52 direct routes, with daily flights from Cork to the major international hubs across Europe.

"Along with our four daily departures to Heathrow connecting to the extensive British Airways world network, we have double daily flights to Manchester connecting to Virgin Atlantic and Etihad networks and double daily departures to Paris CDG, connecting you to over 500 destinations on the Air France network.

“We also offer 12 weekly departures to Amsterdam with Aer Lingus feeding into the KLM network; four weekly flights to Zürich, offering onward connection with Swiss; and two weekly departures to Madrid, connecting to Iberia’s world network.”