Cork Airport has been highly commended at the highly prestigious World Routes Marketing Awards ceremony last night. The international gala event, which took place in Durban, South Africa, celebrates the very best in marketing new routes and route development in the aviation industry.

Speaking at the ceremony Cork Airport’s Managing Director, Niall MacCarthy said: “This is great news for everyone who has worked hard to market the airport and the Munster region to airlines in an effort to secure new routes to our schedule of 50 direct services.

“We have had some good successes this year with the addition of Cardiff with Flybe and London City with CityJet. Attracting new airlines to the region is one of our key objectives and we believe that there are fantastic opportunities to develop our relationship with both airlines into the future.

“We were also delighted to announce that Aer Lingus will be commencing a new Cork Dusseldorf route next year. What makes securing this particular route even more satisfying is that we worked hard with key tourism partners both here in Cork and Munster as well as in Germany to provide Aer Lingus with the evidence to show the reasons the new Dusseldorf service would be a success.”

And there was further good news for the international Irish tourism efforts as Tourism Ireland was announced as the overall winner of the World Routes Awards 2015 as well as named the winner in the Destination Marketing category.

Congratulating Tourism Ireland, MacCarthy said: “We’re delighted for Tourism Ireland, with whom we have a very close working relationship. It’s great to see their tireless efforts to market the island of Ireland and our airports internationally recognized at such an illustrious awards event, voted for and judged by the airlines themselves.”

Cork Airport was nominated in the category ‘Under 4 million’ passengers and the commendation provides further proof that it is one of Europe’s leading airports. The Aviation Marketing team also met with a number of airlines at the World Routes event, which provided an excellent opportunity tonetwork with key decision-makers in an effort to secure new routes.

Cork Airport is the international gateway to the south of Ireland and is uniquely positioned at the start of the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland’s Ancient East.  It is the country’s second largest and busiest airport after Dublin and with more choice than any other airport outside of Dublin. More than 2 million passengers travel through the airport each year, flying to top destinations across the UK and throughout continental Europe. Cork Airport’s customer service (as voted by passengers) has won national and international awards.