Cork Airport has expressed its disappointment at the announcement today that CityJet is to discontinue its Cork – London City Airport route. The service, which commenced last October, is to cease on June 26, 2016.

CityJet has confirmed that its summer services to Nantes and La Rochelle from Cork Airport will operate as scheduled. It is also operating a charter to Menorca for Stein Travel and Lee Travel which is not affected by today's decision. 

Niall MacCarthy, Managing Director at Cork Airport, said of the decision: “It’s very disappointing that CityJet has decided to discontinue its innovative London City route having invested significantly to develop the market over the past eight months. They are a great airline customer and we welcome the continuance of their summer season services to Nantes and La Rochelle as well as the Menorca charter service. 

“Airlines make decisions based on the commercial viability of routes and unfortunately the service to London City was not profitable for CityJet. Quite simply, not enough people were using the service despite intensive and exhaustive marketing campaigns. The nature of the aviation industry is that aircraft are mobile assets and airlines make decisions based on economics. In this instance, it simply did not make sense for CityJet to continue this route as it was incurring ongoing losses.”

He added: “Despite today’s announcement, Cork Airport is still in a period of significant growth and we are expecting to see our passenger numbers increase by 7% to 8% this year. We’ve already added a number of new routes, including Dusseldorf, Cardiff, Leeds Bradford and Southampton. In addition, Iberia Express will commence its new Madrid service shortly and we are also very hopeful about the prospect of our first transatlantic route in the near future.

“Despite this disappointing news, the London market continues to be very well served from Cork Airport with 56 flights each week to Gatwick, Stansted and Heathrow and over 629,000 seats available to London over the summer with other airline partners,” said MacCarthy.

CityJet will be in direct contact with all affected passengers who have booked on www.cityjet.com or via the CityJet Contact Centre and can avail of a full refund. Anyone with queries can contact CityJet on 01-525 1823 (Ireland), 0207 660 6060 (UK) or customersupport@cityjet.com. Customers who booked via a travel agency with be contacted directly by their agency.

You can view the full CityJet release on the end of the Cork-London City route here.