New flights from Knock to Cologne

WELCOME Ireland West Airport CEO Joe Gilmore has welcomed the announcement of a new service from Knock to Cologne, Germany.

Ireland West Airport, Knock have this week announced a new Ryanair service to Cologne, starting in June 2019.
Commencing on June 1, Ryanair will operate direct flights to and from Cologne every Tuesday and Saturday until the end of August. Cologne is Germany’s fourth largest city and the largest city of the State of North Rhine–Westphalia.
Germany is the third-largest market for tourism to the island of Ireland with a record year forecasted in 2018 of over 650,000 German visitors with 50 percent of German holidaymakers visiting the West and North West of Ireland during their stay.
These new services will generate an additional 10,000 seats to and from Germany in summer 2019 with the potential to bring 5,000 German tourists to the region, generating a spend in excess of €3,000,000 for the West and North West regions.
“We are absolutely delighted to welcome this new service from Cologne with Ryanair,” said Joe Gilmore, Managing Director, Ireland West Airport. “German holidaymakers are Ireland’s most active visitors, exploring our historical sites and engaging in multiple events/activities such as hill walking and hiking while on the island, which ties in perfectly with the airports location as the Western gateway to the Wild Atlantic Way. Our continued objective with airlines is in delivering sustainable services which have the potential to grow and develop year on year with a major focus on delivering tourism generating services for the region. We thank Ryanair for their continued support and their vote of confidence in the airport with this new service and we look forward to working with both Ryanair and Tourism Ireland in promoting the new route and encourage the tourism providers in the region to get behind the new service to ensure it’s a success’.
Welcoming the announcement, Niall Gibbons, Chief Executive of Tourism Ireland, said: “As an island, the importance of convenient, direct, non-stop flights cannot be overstated – they are absolutely critical to achieving growth in inbound tourism.”