Cork Airport Unveils Winter Schedule with 1.4 Million Seats and New Routes to Prague and Geneva

Cork Airport has launched its 2025/26 winter schedule featuring 1.4 million seats across 35 routes, including two new Aer Lingus services to Prague and Geneva, as Europe's best regional airport continues its strong growth trajectory.

The winter schedule, which takes effect this weekend, represents an increase of 65,000 seats compared to last year and runs from November through March 2026. Six airlines will operate services throughout the season from the airport, which was awarded Best Regional Airport in Europe by Airport Council International out of 440 regional airports.

Tara Finn, Head of Aviation Business Development and Communications at Cork Airport, said:

"We're thrilled to launch our 2025 winter schedule with 1.4 million seats on sale between November and March. There are some really great additions to this year's schedule, with new Aer Lingus routes to Prague and Geneva, a new Air France winter service to Paris Charles de Gaulle, a third daily KLM service to Amsterdam and a Christmas service to Izmir in Türkiye with SunExpress."

The new Prague service, operating twice weekly on Thursdays and Sundays, starts on 23 October, while the Geneva route begins on 20 December with weekly Saturday flights. Both routes are operated by Aer Lingus, which will also maintain important hub connectivity with four times daily service to London Heathrow and daily service to Bristol, along with four times weekly service to Glasgow operated by Aer Lingus Regional.

Ryanair will operate 22 routes from Cork this winter, including city break destinations such as Edinburgh, Liverpool, Paris, Brussels, Gdansk, Rome, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville. Winter sun destinations are particularly well served, with flights to all four Canary Islands: Lanzarote, Tenerife, Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria, alongside Iberian Peninsula destinations including Malaga, Alicante and Faro.

Hub connectivity receives a significant boost this season, with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines increasing its service between Cork and Amsterdam Schiphol to three times per day, an increase of over 32,000 seats. Air France will consolidate its year-round operations with a new three times weekly service to Paris Charles de Gaulle. Combined, these enhanced connections provide passengers from the south of Ireland access to 320 worldwide destinations on the wider Air France-KLM network via Amsterdam and Paris.

Cork Airport's newest airline partner, SunExpress, will operate a twice weekly service to Izmir over the extended Christmas holiday period from 17 December to 7 January, providing winter holidaymakers an option of enjoying Türkiye for Christmas and an important seasonal service for members of the Turkish community living in Cork returning home for the festive period.

Catering for the busy ski holiday season, Aer Lingus will operate services to Geneva, Lyon (twice weekly) and Munich (weekly). The Munich service returns one month earlier this year and will operate twice weekly during December on Saturdays and Tuesdays, providing the opportunity to visit the Munich Christmas markets. Aer Lingus will also operate a weekly service to Salzburg on behalf of popular Irish ski tour operators, though this cannot be booked on the Aer Lingus website but instead with ski tour operators and travel agencies.

Niall MacCarthy, Cork Airport's Managing Director, added:

"Increasingly, passengers from Kildare to Kilkenny and other counties outside of our traditional catchment are discovering the ease and friendliness of Cork Airport for family holidays. With 14 per cent growth year to date, I'm confident that more and more passengers from south Leinster will continue to discover the benefits of Cork Airport this winter."

The airport is promoting this winter's schedule extensively across the wider Munster and south Leinster region through digital, radio and out-of-home placements. An increasing number of passengers are coming from Kilkenny, Carlow, Wexford and Laois to fly from Cork Airport for its convenience, ease and hassle-free airport experience, alongside the traditional catchment area and Munster base.

In 2024, Cork Airport welcomed 3.1 million passengers, representing 10 per cent growth versus 2023, and is forecasting over 12 per cent growth again in 2025 to bring passenger numbers to over 3.4 million.

A €200 million capital development programme, to put in place the necessary infrastructure to support growth to beyond five million passengers per annum in the next number of years, was announced by An Taoiseach Micheál Martin in May 2025. Works have now commenced on the first phase of this programme.