Airbridges
Airbridges and covered walkways are not going to be installed in the forseeable future. In any case, as the airport has been in operation for over forty years and this year will see a record number of passengers using the facility, it is hard to see how the absence of airbridges has affected its performance.
A number of airports are abandoning the use of airbridges to cater for the LoCo airlines e.g. Pier A at Dublin where FR and increasingly EI base their operations and Pier H at AMS. In most cases the walk from the terminal to the plane is the same distance as that in ORK.
Don't know if there is a study showing that tourists are avoiding the Cork region due to the absence of airbridges or covered walkways at ORK.
As the glass in the old terminal was tinted on the outside, seem to recall that passengers were unable to see their relatives frantically waving at them when boarding.