Tourism News – Northern Ireland
August 13th, 2007 by Christina Putz
Three weeks ago, Belfast Today made it public that Ryanair is going to start daily flights to Liverpool, East Midlands and Glasgow, in an attempt to increase tourism. In fact, 10,000 of the first seats are for sat at £10. But the destinations are also to extend to Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Madrid, Brussels and Pisa. Ryanair is hopeful that this will increase the amount of visitors in Belfast, and will also create almost 300 jobs at Belfast City Airport. Rival airlines such as EasyJet, and British Midland have already started flying direct from Belfast to Glasgow and Liverpool, increasing the interest in Belfast and Northern Ireland in terms of tourist from continental Europe. Not only would the new routes boost the economy, but the new routs are expected to carry almost 300,000 new passengers a year.
Surprisingly, there was little worry about a runway extension at Belfast City Airport, nor at Aer Lingus’ announcement that they will be flying direct from Belfast International Airport to London Heathrow. Officials say that growth in terminals and runways, if any, will come gradually in the future, and that they are fully prepared to deal with the new Ryanair deal.
