Irish airports in the running for World Routes awards
Four Irish airports have been nominated in the prestigious aviation marketing awards World Routes which takes place in Barcelona in September. Dublin has been nominated in the category of over 25 million passengers, Cork and Shannon have been nominated in the under four million passengers category along with George Best Belfast City Airport. Tourism Ireland has been nominated in the Destination Award category which it won in 2015. Shannon has been shortlisted for the fifth consecutive year and has won twice in the past three years. Dublin Airport won its category in 2014 and the overall award in 2016 when Cork was highly commended.
Dublin hotels are thriving
Dublin hotels are thriving, according to a JLL analysis of 106 countries worldwide. Dublin, Melbourne, Vancouver and Seattle have outperformed in recent years in terms of occupancy, demand, and revenue per available room. Commenting on the result, senior Vice-President Hotels at JLL, Daniel O'Connor, said: "It is fantastic that Dublin is thriving once again with its global status growing – and with 3,000 hotel bedrooms set to be created in Dublin before 2020, this will further enhance its position."
More connecting flights from Ryanair
Ryanair has extended connecting flights at Milan Bergamo and added 25 more routes. They include Hamburg, Porto, Bratislava, Budapest, Prague, Thessaloniki and Vilnius. Passengers can book connecting flights on 50 routes and transfer airside. Bags can be checked through to the final destination, using the one booking reference number. There will be more connections rolled out later in the year.
Aer Lingus increasing capacity to US for winter
Aer Lingus is adding extra capacity from the UK to Dublin for the winter to feed expansion into the transatlantic services. Some 138,000 seats will be added, with 56,000 to Heathrow and 50,000 to Birmingham, to feed the extra 350 flights across the Atlantic. Dublin to Miami will begin on September 1st and frequency has been increased on Toronto, Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
jscales@irishtimes.com