SHANNON Airport has announced that its first ever scheduled Lufthansa service is to have its capacity doubled this year with the announcement of a second weekly service to Frankfurt.
The service will now operate to Frankfurt on Thursday’s as well as Saturday’s, with the outbound leg on Thursday’s arriving in Frankfurt in time to meet onward connections at one of Europe’s largest and most important airport hubs.
The service will operate weekly using an Embraer190 aircraft on Thursdays and an Airbus A319 on Saturdays and will run from the May 2 to October 12.
Welcoming the announcement, Shannon Airport Managing Director Andrew Murphy said: “This is very positive news for us as it reaffirms the market that there is for Shannon for services into European hub airports. Lufthansa, which is one of Europe’s biggest airlines, came on board with this service in 2017 and would not be doubling frequency unless the demand was there. Having Lufthansa commit with this second weekly service across the summer season is very encouraging from that perspective. We have worked very hard on this, as we do with all our services, and are really pleased to be making this gain.”
Mr Murphy added: “In addition to the outbound opportunities for onward connections and, indeed, the opportunity this gives eastern markets to fly with one-stop connectivity into Shannon, the German market is the third largest tourism market for Ireland. As the gateway airport to the Wild Atlantic Way, we offer direct access for that market to the part of the country that resonates the most with them. We look forward to working with Lufthansa and growing this service further in the future.”
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.