THOUSANDS of French, Italian, Spanish and German tourists will be putting Donegal on the tourist map next year after an incredible FOUR new air routes will open up the county.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny announced the new routes out of Ireland West Knock later today.
Flights to and from Barcelona, Paris, Milan and Frankfurt will be unveiled by Mr Kenny and Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary.
It’s thought that the routes will bring in tens of thousands of visitors – as well as opening up those routes to people from Donegal.
More and more people from throughout the county are choosing to use Ireland West Knock – it’s around two hours from Letterkenny in the north of the county and just over an hour from south of the county.
The fights start in March and will fly into and out of Paris three days per week with flights to and from Milan on Fridays and Mondays and flights to and from Frankfurt every Thursday and Sunday.
Mr Kenny and Mr O’Leary welcomed the announcement and its massive potential to bring thousands of tourists to the west and north west of Ireland.
To celebrate its 14 low-fare Knock routes, Ryanair released a million seats with fares from €14.99 for travel across its 1,000 European routes in January 2012.
The seats must be booked on www.ryanair.com before midnight on Thursday, Nov 24 and go on sale on www.ryanair.com tomorrow.
Speaking in Knock, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said: “Knock Airport today celebrates four new Ryanair routes in summer 2012 to Barcelona, Frankfurt, Milan and Paris, taking Ryanair’s Knock routes to 14, which will deliver over 500,000 passengers and sustain more than 500 jobs in Knock next summer.”
Joe Gilmore, Managing Director Ireland West Airport Knock, said: “We are delighted to welcome these 4 new 2012 routes to/from some of Europe’s biggest tourism markets. In 2012 Ryanair will deliver over 600,000 seats to/from Knock, providing low cost direct access for European tourists to the beautiful west coast of Ireland which will boost tourism in this region.
“We wish to acknowledge the support of Government through its agencies and political representatives in ensuring these important services were won for Knock. In particular Minister Michael Ring and Niall Gibbons CEO Tourism Ireland, deserve special mention.”
Jim White of the White Hotel Group has already announced that he hopes to bring 17,000 German tourists to the county over the next year after a successful marketing campaign.
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