Here’s some good news on the travel front.

Cork Airport has announced that Lufthansa’s new twice-weekly service from Cork Airport to Frankfurt, first announced back in February, launched today, just in time for summer.

The new service, operated by Lufthansa CityLine, takes off this afternoon and will operate every Monday and Friday, served with a Bombardier CRJ-900 aircraft. There are 75 seats on board – 60 Economy Class and 15 Business Class, if you’re feeling fancy.

The flight will depart Frankfurt Airport at 15.40 local time, arriving into Cork Airport at 16.45. The return flight will depart Cork at 17.25 landing in Frankfurt at 20.30 local time, a flight time of two hours and five minutes.

Lufthansa joins other major European flag carriers – KLM, SWISS and Air France as well as home carriers Aer Lingus and Ryanair, operating from Cork Airport this summer.

Further great news today with a new @lufthansa operation set to take off this afternoon to complement our existing @FlySWISS service with both airlines offering seamless connectivity through their Lufthansa Group Hubs at Frankfurt and Zurich respectively. pic.twitter.com/UuZpJwn9Po

— Cork Airport (@CorkAirport) June 25, 2021

Today’s announcement concludes intensive efforts made by the Cork Airport team to bring the German flag carrier to Cork in recent years.

“These are challenging times for aviation globally, so it is great to see Lufthansa take off from Cork Airport this summer connecting Cork with Frankfurt for the first time in 18 years,” said Brian Gallagher, Head of Aviation and Commercial Business Development at Cork Airport.

“We have worked long and hard over many years to secure connectivity to Frankfurt and beyond with Lufthansa to help support businesses and internationally trading companies across the South of Ireland region. It is great to see all this work come to fruition and secure further international connectivity to another major European hub airport.’’