Cardiff Airport has announced additional flights to Belfast following strong demand over the summer and less than four months since the service was relaunched. Aer Lingus regional services, operated by Emerald Airlines, will add two further weekly flights between the capital cities.
The extra departures will be on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, increasing the current five-time weekly service to a daily operation over next summer. Flights are now on sale and available to book with fares starting from £39.99.
Marc Watkins, aviation development manager at Cardiff Airport, said: "We knew there was pent-up demand for a regular and reliable connection between these two capital cities when the Belfast service launched just four months ago. The route from Cardiff has proven to be a flyaway success within a few weeks with strong loads over the summer.
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"With more departures during the working week we expect to see more business travellers accessing this service to complement those leisure passengers which have been more frequent users of the Cardiff-Belfast service up until now.” Ciarán Smith, head of commercial at Emerald Airlines, added: “We are very pleased with the feedback we have received since launching our services between Cardiff and Belfast and so we are delighted to be increasing our frequencies for the upcoming summer 2023 season.”
In July this year the airport resumed flights to and from Belfast six months after the service was suspended. The route had been restored in May 2021 after being left vacant by the collapse of Flybe the previous year but it was announced in January this year that the service was being suspended.
The route was initially paused until early March but this suspension was later extended until June 5. During this time those wanting to travel between Wales and Northern Ireland were unable to fly directly and had to travel via an airport in England instead.
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