Many people in Ireland scoffed at the idea of building an airport on the windswept, marshy plateaus of the west of Ireland. Conventional wisdom held that it would never get off the ground.
But almost 40 years after the first plane roared up the 2.3km runway at Knock Airport (officially known as Ireland West Airport), not only is the facility doing well, but traffic has also skyrocketed. It is reported that
A January statement said 2023 was its “busiest year on record.” Knock’s annual passenger numbers of 818,000 were not only a 13% increase compared to 2022, but also surpassed the next highest number of 807,000 passengers in 2019.
The uproar comes after the famous film “The Banshee of Ineshelin” drew a lot of attention to Ireland’s rugged western islands. Many scenes were filmed on Achill Island, about a 90 minute drive from the airport.
When the airport opened in the 1980s, tens of thousands of people migrated to Ireland every year, and County Mayo, where the airport is located, was particularly hard hit.
By then Apple had set up operations in the city of Cork in the south of the island, but Ireland was still open to such large-scale foreign investment that the likes of Google and Meta set up regional headquarters in the capital, Dublin (where the airport is usually located). It wasn’t. It carries approximately 30 million passengers annually.
The airport site is approximately 20 kilometers from Knock, a village and Catholic pilgrimage site that welcomes approximately one million visitors a year and hosted visits from the Pope in 1979 and 2018, and from Ireland’s scenic Atlantic coast. It is approximately 40 minutes away by car.
The airport was the brainchild of Knock’s parish priest, Fr. James Horan’s idea was that the airport would not only accommodate pilgrims and open up the west of Ireland to more tourists, but also make it easier for immigrants who left the area to return home to see their families.
As a small airport, Knock has long prided itself on its convenience. For years, passengers typically had about five minutes to check in, go through security, and sit at the departure gate, often with time for coffee or tea along the way.
For travelers looking to escape the hustle and bustle of Dublin and explore the natural moonscape of Connemara, the charming town of Westport or the more laid-back city of Galway, a direct flight to Knock is more convenient.
In 2023, the airport will add what management calls a “new next-generation in-flight baggage inspection system” that will eliminate the need for passengers to remove laptops, phones and liquids from their carry-on bags.
More than 600,000 of Knock’s passengers in 2023 will travel to and from the UK, with the majority traveling to holiday destinations such as Alicante, Faro and Mallorca, or cultural and football hubs such as Barcelona, Cologne and Milan. I was aiming for it. More than 730,000 of the passengers flew on Irish airline Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline.
But in 2023, Knock also lost its popular connection to London Gatwick Airport, known for its high-speed rail links to central London (usually arriving within 10 minutes of arriving at the airport) and access to the south of England. .
The route has been replaced by one to London Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, but with more long-haul connections than Gatwick, but for people flying to and from the British capital. is inconvenient.
