A direct link from the Rebel County to the Big Apple might be closer than we thought.

Speaking at the Cork’s Chamber business breakfast at Cork International Hotel, Managing Director of Cork Airport Niall MacCarthy revealed we could see a Cork-New York flight as early as 2021.

Cork Airport’s runway has traditionally been too short to accommodate most transatlantic flights.

Norwegian currently operates the only US route out of Cork to Providence, Rhode Island, but newer jets currently in the pipeline could see the runway obstacle removed.

MacCarthy explained that, thanks to the next generation of Boeing Max and Airbus A321 and A321LR aircraft, direct flights to New York are “two to three years away” for Cork Airport.

“The length of the runway will not be the previous restriction that it was. We were told originally that we could not do transatlantic because the technology did not enable it.” said Mr MacCarthy.

“The Boeing Max has proved we can, so next is to see how far we can go, and that is New York. The technology is getting better all the time.”

Cork Airport is on target to outperform all other Irish airports in 2019, with traffic forecasted to reach 2.6m passengers for the year – up 8% on 2018.