Indeed. I put in a sample booking from Cork to Montreal and it initially came in as a relatively attractive €331. However, to go to normal size cabin baggage (included was only a 42x32x25 bag) was an extra €78. To add a checked bag was €110.

Wow is a left field announcement! Well done to ORK for managing to attract a new airline to the airport, a brand new destination and onward connections across North America.

The cheapest ORK-YUL fare I can see for next May and beyond is with BA for 600 EUR or Air Canada for 625, both via LHR, Vs 441 for the Wow flights with the small cabin bag and a 20kg hold bag. I cant find a menu on-line, but I'd budget 50EUR, or less for the four flights. So for less than 500EUR you avoid back tracking, have a very short, same airline connection in Iceland.

I think, for that level of saving and convenience and being able to avoid the journey to DUB, or a connection in a bigger hub, especially when more than one person is travelling Wow should expect to do well, while Norwegian remain bogged down in US red tape.

As an aside the WW code will be back on screens at ORK - last seen in the bmibaby days, of course.

Disagree on this one I think Norwegian are committed to doing these services and will do them with the new max aircraft which don't need the approval of the US dot - could see progress either way once election is over

What?

They could start the routes tomorrow if they wanted to, they are only using Cork as political bait to get the approval for their Irish subsidiary, nothing yo do with aircraft type, if I'm not wrong the original announcement was for 737MAX anyway.

KLM code share on the Aer Lingus fights now available to September 2017, so I guess that was a false alarm.

MAD-ORK back next summer
 

The MAD-ORK flight is loaded on the Iberia website.

They seem to be operating 03-Jun to 06-Sep.

Am I right in thinking that's a longer season than this year?

You are correct.

Route did fairly good last year.

Schedule changes delay passport checks
 

It seems that both EI and FR winter schedules are lining up to cause some minor inconvenience for arrving pax. In the morning starting at 10.10am there are four flights arriving in a 25 minute period with the potential to drop 500 pax into the passport area.

I arrived the other morning from AMS to be greeted with a huge queue. The two lads manning the kiosks were doing their best but who plans this? I know it's nothing compared to the waits in big international airports but a 20 minute queue for passport is a bit of joke at Cork, especially when the norm is to sail right through. The queue was backed right up onto the air bridge :ugh:

Cork can deal with these perfectly, as long as resources are allocated wisely.

Which they are often not.

It's not so much the number of flights as the passenger mix. AMS probably carries more non-EU passengers than any other route. That slows up processing as the non-EU desk will process EU passengers when nobody is waiting (which is pretty much the norm on bucket and spade flights).

I presume the other flights were Stansted, Birmingham and Manchester?

Manchester also has its fair share of transfer passengers.

It is a bit of a pity that they can't find some way of splitting the arrivals so that Common Travel Area passengers can be separated and kept out of the passport queues altogether, however, it would probably be too operationally restrictive in an airport the size of Cork. It would also mean investing in some buses...

More flights from LHR to be announced and European services at a later date.

Guess those extra slots could be going to Cork....

ORK-BCN on EI seems to be up to 5 times per week next summer.

The Taoiseach is now saying that the political block on Norwegian has been lifted

Enda Kenny: Political block of Norwegian Air's transatlantic flights lifted | BreakingNews.ie

No surprise that this has happened after the US elections as with all the protectionist rhetoric, there would have been no desire to provide a stick to beat the Democrats with.

The next administration won't be so sympathetic, but it will hopefully get approved before they are in.

Now to find out whether Norwegian were just using Cork Airport or whether they were serious about the service.

1. Dublin doesn't even seperate CTA pax, and the CTA could be gone in 2 years.

2. Strange that they cut LHR over the past while if they're going to increase it soon

3. No the Norwegian proposal was never serious, the route was always BCN-BOS with a stop in Cork, the BCN-BOS route has started itself anyway. Cork was never going to be more than a minor detail in the schedule.

Yup interested to see what will happen to CTA after Brexit. The logistics of separating it though would be too costly even at DUB. The mess that I witnessed the other morning could have been solved with a bit of foresight, unfortunately something that is often lacking in Ireland.

Also what are the regulations regarding flight/cabin crew and passport control at ORK? On that morning I witnessed both sets of crew excuse themselves past passengers in the long queue and head over to the staff lane.

Subsequently I noticed the cabin crew were waiting for somebody to inspect them. Nobody came and they walked through without inspection! A handful disappeared off into a room, probably to a staff room but one of the crew left and went out landside! Remember that the flight originated at AMS, so did this crew illegally enter the country? :confused:

Would also require legalisation change to separate. Given winter schedules only started it likely takes time to adjust hours etc.

As for CTA, nothing will happen, only change will be airline information. The PM wouldn't dare return a border and NI people wont accept passport checks at airports unless it applied to domestic on mainland as well.

Swiss to fly Zurich-Cork from June to September. Once a week in June and September. Twice a week in July and August.

That's an excellent add.
Fridays throughout the season, the additional flight will operate on Mondays.
All flights will operate with the C-Series. Even better!
I think this route has a really good chance of surviving long term, possibly eventually being a year round service.

great news CORK ZURICH hope it does well