Cork Airport recognised for phenomenal achievement and development in competitive category.

Cork Airport has come out on top at a prestigious aviation awards ceremony in Paris last night. The airport has been named Airport Council International (ACI) Best Airport in Europe (under 5 million passengers) at the 27th Airports Council International (ACI) Europe General Assembly, Congress and Exhibition, which was attended by over 400 Aviation Chief Executives and industry leaders.

The Awards recognise excellence and achievement across a variety of airport disciplines. Shortlisted airports were assessed by a panel of aviation expert judges and key institutional stakeholders. Winners were announced as part of the proceedings of the Gala Dinner at the 27th ACI EUROPE General Assembly, Congress and Exhibition 2017 in Paris.

Speaking after the ceremony, Niall MacCarthy, Cork Airport’s Managing Director said: “We are very proud and delighted to win the top prize as Europe’s Best Airport in our category. Cork Airport's business turnaround strategy has been recognised and endorsed by our leadership peers in the European airport industry".

“The entire team at Cork Airport works extremely hard to ensure we maintain outstanding levels of customer service every single day of the year. We strive to make the passenger experience better than any other competitor airport and one that our passengers will tell their friends and family about".

Cork Airport’s win of the Award is accredited to the airport’s ambitious and determined drive for route expansion and growth whilst maintaining world class friendliness and service levels. Cork Airport was the only Irish airport shortlisted in its competitive category.

Cork Airport’s successes in the past 18 months have been widely reported in terms of new routes across its growing network. The win will add further excitement ahead of the historic inaugural transatlantic service, which takes off on July 1. The airport’s leading efforts to secure the Norwegian route to Boston/Providence were also acknowledged earlier in the year when Kevin Cullinane, Head of Communications accepted the impressive EuroPAward at a ceremony in Brussels.

Cullinane commented: “Winning awards, such as the ACI Europe Best Airport, acknowledges and reinforces the hard work and excellent results that the team at Cork Airport is achieving by international industry leaders. We will experience continued passenger growth again this year, up a further 5% on 2016, and we are continuing to deliver new routes for passengers from the South of Ireland. We will certainly take the opportunity to celebrate tonight’s win but our main focus is to ensure our new routes, particularly our transatlantic services with both WOW air and Norwegian are a success”.

The ACI EUROPE Best Airport Awards are presented to airports for excellence and achievement across a whole range of disciplines including:

Retail
Community Relations
Facilities
Customer Service/Passenger & Airlines
Security
Environmental Awareness
Operations