A petition has been launched calling for direct flights to be reinstated between two international airports in Scotland and Ireland.
Flights between Glasgow and Cork were among a number of routes cancelled by Aer Lingus after operator Stobart Air ended its contract with the Irish airline in June of 2021.
It came after Stobart Air, which operated the Aer Lingus regional franchise, failed to find a buyer and ceased trading, citing the impact of the pandemic.
Conor O'Leary, who set up the petition, told The Herald: “I’m from Cork myself but I live in Glasgow. There used to be direct flights between Cork and Glasgow. That was before Covid. Stobart Air were operating the flights, but they went bust during covid.
READ MORE: Two Boeing 787 Dreamliners to be scrapped at Scots airport in 'world first'
“I have many friends and family who are connected to Glasgow. But they are put off by the lack of direct flights. It would make life so much easier.”
Mr O’Leary flew regularly on the route prior to the collapse of Stobart Air, and believed it to be a popular service, especially on the weekends as fans travelled from Cork to Glasgow to attend Celtic matches.
His petition also calls on the connection between the two cities to be reinstated to help promote tourism in his native Cork and the wider County Cork area.
He said: “It seems that there is support out there to reinstate the flights. Around 550 people have signed the petition so far, and it’s been picking up over the last couple of days.
This Glasgow to Cork direct flight was a casualty of the global pandemic. Would be amazing to get it operating again from @GLA_Airport to @CorkAirport a petition has been launched to Reinstate the Cork to Glasgow flight - https://t.co/Xcbx7SkVkt via @UKChange
— Áine Allardyce (@AHAllardyce) March 2, 2023
“I’ve seen a few comments on the petition. Most of them seem positive. Some say they have family in Glasgow and live in Cork and would travel over more if there was a direct flight. A lot of Celtic supporters also used the service regularly. It seemed a popular enough service before the pandemic.”
Ryanair currently operates daily flights between Edinburgh Airport and Cork.
Despite this, Mr O’Leary, believes that travellers would also benefit from, and make use of, a direct connection between Glasgow and Ireland’s second largest city, which he dubbed “a cash cow route”.
He added: “You can fly from Edinburgh To be totally honest it isn’t the worst but we thought we may as well try and get the [Glasgow] flight back if we could because it was there before covid and I know a lot of people would use that route. So we are just trying to see if we could get that back but whether it will happen or not I don’t actually know.
“At present you need to fly from Glasgow to Dublin and get the bus down to Cork or you can get to Edinburgh and get the flight to Cork. We kind of feel that Cork is being forgotten about and that everything is being re-routed to Dublin.”
A spokesperson at Emerald Airlines, exclusive operator of the Aer Lingus Regional network, said: "At this time, Emerald Airlines, exclusive operator of Aer Lingus Regional services, does not operate this route. As we enter into the next stage of growth at Emerald Airlines, we are constantly looking for new opportunities to grow our route network, and so we will always consider ways to grow our services."
Ryanair have been approached for comment.
To sign the petition, click here
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here