Ireland West Airport Knock today, Wednesday July 5th 2006, welcomed Mrs Mary Croghan from Castlerea as its four millionth passenger since the airport opened in 1986. The latest figures show that the month of June was the busiest month ever at Ireland West Airport Knock with over 65,000 passengers travelling through the airport on its scheduled and sun holiday charter flights. This brings the total amount of passengers using the airport in the first half of this year to just under 300,000, almost a 20% increase on last year.
The increased passenger numbers is attributable to the growth in the airport’s European charter flights as well as its scheduled flights to the UK. The airport is currently operating four times daily jet routes to three London airports with low cost airlines easyJet and Ryanair – the latter having commenced a new route to London’s Luton Airport late last October. In addition, low cost operator, bmibaby’s strong performance on its Birmingham and Manchester routes have resulted in that airline extending its daily flights to these destinations to twice daily at the beginning of July.
The sun holiday charter business is also experiencing high growth with more flights being operated to destinations such Portugal and Lanzarote as well as the addition of new holiday destinations this summer to Crete, Croatia and Salou.
Mrs Croghan was flying out on holidays to Crete which is being operated by local tour operator Mayo Travel. She was the lucky winner of a shopping spree picking up some well known brands and luxury goods in the airport’s retail shop which has also been expanded. Mrs Croghan also received a travel gift voucher courtesy of Mayo Travel.
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