Featured Airport: Cork

Richard Maslen May 13, 2010

Cork Airport is the Republic of Ireland's southern gateway, accounting for 3.3 million passengers in 2008.

Cork Airport in Ireland serves a population of half a million people and a region of over 1.1 million. It also provides access to the majority of the country's southern population of 1.6 million potential customers.

A significant element of Ireland's economic activity outside of Dublin is on the southern seaboard, which is easily accessed through Cork Airport.

Cork Airport ranks second in Ireland in terms of passenger volume. Its location is a significant strategic advantage as flying times to the rest of Europe are shorter than from Ireland's other airports further north.

Cork Airport also has excellent access from the north, east and west with nearly half a million people living within one hour of the gateway. This grows to 1.6 million two hours out.

Catchment Area

Cork, as Ireland's second city, is growing in popularity with tourists from Europe and beyond.

Cork was the 'European City of Culture' in 2005 and has become a popular city break destination for European travellers with visitor numbers growing annually over the last 16 years. In 2007, Cork airport saw a record number of visitors to the city region, ranking it the second most popular tourist destination after Ireland's capital, Dublin.

The Cork city region has also proved to be an extremely popular choice for large multinational businesses with many opening their European headquarters here.

Ireland's favourable corporate tax rate and highly educated young workforce (the youngest in the EU) are just some of the factors that attract foreign direct investment to Cork.

Key industry sectors such as ICT, pharmaceuticals, bio/pharma and financial services have chosen to establish offices in Cork, resulting in significant business travel to London, UK provincial cities and continental Europe.

Open skies has created the opportunity and appetite for direct transatlantic services to and from Cork Airport.

Cork Airport carries out extensive market research which provides a detailed analysis of the type of passengers using the airport.

In 2009 nearly 2,000 departing passengers were surveyed covering topics such as residency, nationality, purpose of journey, booking channels, booking periods, length of stay, group size, social class, fares and onward connecting destination. This information is available to our existing airline customers and potential new airlines looking at the South of Ireland market.

Cork Airport Overall Passenger Profile
Jan - Dec 2009
Age
Under 25	21%
25 - 49 Years	56%
50 + Years	23%
Social Class
AB	28%
C1	41%
C2DE	29%
F1/F2	1%
Purpose of Journey
Business	15%
VFR	17%
Holiday	44%
Other	24%
Residency
Ireland	59%
Great Britain	24%
Europe	12%
North America	2%
Other Country	2%
Cork Airport Overall Passenger Profile
Jan - Dec 2009
Length of Stay
Day Return		3%
Overnight		6%
2 - 3 Nights		28%
4 - 7 Nights		21%
8 - 14 Nights		31%
More than 2 weeks		11%
Booking Channel
Travel Agent		5%
Someone Else		5%
Internet		90%
When Booking Made
Day of Flight		1%
Day Before		1%
2 - 7 Days Before		13%
8 - 14 Days Before		12%
15 - 31 Days Before		27%
Over 1 Month		46%

Top Five Destinations from Cork:

London
Dublin
Amsterdam
Manchester
Paris

Route Support Scheme

Cork Airport offers an attractive and generous new Route Support Scheme. In sharing the risks of start-up operations with airlines during the initial phases, Cork Airport encourages airlines to commence operations on new routes earlier than they might otherwise have done.

Cork Airport offers low airport charges for new routes to both short-haul and long-haul destinations in order to encourage airlines to commence operations where there is adequate capacity available for viable, sustainable and profitable routes. (Please view Cork's profile for detailed information on the Route Support Scheme by clicking here).