It’s about to get trickier to travel from Cork.

Ryanair has officially confirmed it will be cancelling all flights from Cork Airport for a four week period from mid-November to mid-December 2020, after floating the idea a fortnight ago.

Addressing the Oireachtas Transport Committee today, Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson said all scheduled Ryanair flights from the airline’s Munster hubs at Cork and Shannon between November 4th and December 12th have been cancelled and there is a chance they may not reopen after the pandemic restrictions are lifted.

Niall MacCarthy, Managing Director at Cork Airport said the decision further weakens the Irish aviation ecosystem, saying “each blow delivers further incremental damage”.

“It is acknowledged that as an island nation with an open economy we have to learn to co-exist with this virus for quite some time yet,” he said.

“In that regard, we welcome the Irish Government’s adoption of the EU traffic light system from 8th November. However, a low cost, scalable, results pre-departure testing regime needs to form the backbone of the return of confidence in safe air travel. The mechanisms and protocols for this are yet to be agreed in Ireland and this is beyond urgent now.”

So which flights are still operating from Cork?

Cork Airport expects to have between 14 and 18 flights per week with KLM and Aer Lingus serving Amsterdam and Heathrow between November 15th and December 5th.

“In addition, we plan, with Government support, to continue to provide services for search and rescue flights, coastguard helicopter, Garda helicopter, Irish Aer Corps, Medical evacuation (medevac) and transplant flights. However our passenger numbers for November this year are likely to be 9,000 versus 172,000 in the same month last year, a decrease of 95%,” said Mr MacCarthy.

“In that regard, we welcome the commencement of capital expenditure supports announced in the budget for 2021 and we look forward to engagement on an overall financial support package for Cork Airport ahead of the National Development plan announcements in November when it is expected the Aviation Taskforce recommendations will be addressed.”