Eoghan Corry Talks Travel – May 2025

Eoghan Corry has the latest travel industry news as he breaks down the key talking points in his monthly travel column.

80,000 Irish holidaymakers are expected to set sail on cruises in 2025, and despite the ‘Trump slump’, Irish travel agencies report strong bookings to the USA. In welcome news for flyers, Dublin Airport is set to get tastier with 15 new restaurants this year, passengers will soon be allowed to carry liquids in their hand luggage again, and could there be bargain flights to the USA via Paris? Eoghan Corry has Ireland’s top travel news right here.

TUI to the rescue

In the absence of the usual selection of new routes from our airports, it is refreshing to see tour operator TUI come to the rescue. It is hard not to miss the buzz as their new routes took off in recent weeks: Larnaca in Cyprus and Enfidha in Tunisia from Dublin, Corfu from Cork and Palma de Mallorca from Shannon, with Cork’s route to Dalaman and Belfast International routes to Punta Cana and Cancun to follow next month.

The German based holiday company had a torrid time of it two years ago when some of its Dublin and Cork rotations were delayed and cancelled, a knock on from a more serious problem in Manchester, but now it is flying high. What changed? Aviation.

Several of the routes were allocated to the fleet of TUI Fly Netherlands rather than England. Going Dutch this year are Corfu, Enfidha, Heraklion, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Larnaca, Palma de Mallorca, Reus, Rhodes and Zakynthos, while TUI airways will cover the routes to Cancún, Geneva, Innsbruck, Kittilä, Salzburg and Verona.

TUI also regularly charter from their own operations elsewhere, passengers will remember getting announcements in French on a flight to Spain for a summer of rotations because the aircraft as chartered in from Canada. Magnifique, as they say in Ibiza.

Back in the box

Prepare to put that bottle back in the bag. Scanners installed in all but two of our airports already allow liquids be left in the suitcase (or will allow, when Dublin airport completes the fit out of T1 this month). The good news is that, this summer, the security officials will let us do us what the technology already allows us to do, after a nine-month hiatus.

The questions raised by the US regulators will be resolved and that led to such unnecessary grief, forced us to remove liquids from bags and caused so many bottles of to be confiscated will be at an end, after an initial 19 years of bondage and the renewed order that affected even the new scanners last September.

How odd that liquids that were so dangerous they had to be confiscated from passengers were then sold off at a charity auction? It they were too dangerous to be brought on board, why are they safe to give to auntie Nellie for Christmas? The madness of airport security knows no end.

Lounges and lunches

The overwhelming aroma (did it come from the kitchen?) at the Airports Council International conference is that the future of airports is food. The new scenario for airport dining is based on restaurants selling fresh food, and offering delivery to the gate so that passengers are no longer at the mercy of Gate Gourmet. This makes sense. Flyers don’t linger. Air passengers are not going to be sitting at a table for longer than an hour, pretty much a restaurateur’s dream.

Heathrow T2 even tried a Michelin star, a collaboration between Louis Vuitton and starred chef Cyril Lignac, optimistically thinking Michelin customers are prepared to be ripped off for their slow-cooked black pearl beef chuck with black garlic and sip their £1,950 Château Cheval-Blanc with an eye on the departure board.

Dublin airport is reserving its own seat at the food-is-the-future table. They opened 15 new outlets last year and 15 are due this year, Asian food, healthier choices, and new additions such as Butlers and the upcoming tapas bar, The Reserve.

Me? I still prefer snacking at the landside self service, on the mezzanine in T1 where all the action was until the 1990s and the tearful goodbyes took place. Prices are cheaper. Collect the tray and off you go.

Trans-Atlantic summer

One could be forgiven for thinking that tourists are cancelling their trips to America by the thousand as a result of international politics and rumours about US border patrol going through people’s WhatsApp messages. Maybe so, but not from Ireland.

While forecasters say that overall tourism to the USA is going to be down 6pc this year, as opposed to the rise of 6pc which they predicted before January, the Irish travel trade report just three cancellations this year as a result of Donald Trump turbulence. Yes, THREE.

Bookings are up 20% with the two main operators that specialise in the USA. This is what you might expect. We have never had so much trans-Atlantic choice, with multiple frequencies to New York, Boston and Chicago, 30 routes operating in high summer and three new services to Detroit (Delta), Indianapolis and Nashville (both Aer Lingus).

Irish visits to the USA were down 27pc in March but bounced back, up 34pc in April, thanks to a mixture of Easter and the aviation summer frequencies kicking in. That said, trips to the USA are not yet back to pre-pandemic (97%) but we can confidently predict 520k Irish visits to the USA in 2025.

Traffic in the other direction may be a problem (more stock exchange than politics) and other European markets are less prone to travel, especially France, where the travel Trump-slump is real. That is good news for consumers who still wish to fly west. Flight prices were loaded into the reservation systems at a peculiarly high rate by the airlines in the autumn and some of them are beginning to come down dramatically. Check Air France via Paris CDG for the bargains.

Antrim has a moment

A steady stream of new hotels have been opening their doors on the northern coast. With the British Open coming to north Antrim, it is no surprise that three of Ireland’s most exciting new luxury openings are there, in contrast to 2019, the tournament, one of the four most prestigious in the world, last plopped onto the green and there were virtually no beds on the coast.

Dunluce Lodge is the star of the show, Portrush Adelphi and Andras House are also polishing the door knobs. Carnlough, County Antrim has gotten a new whiskey hotel. When the hordes return to where they came from, there are five-star bargain stays to be had.

Cruise industry’s rising tide

The recent Cruise Line International Association conference outlined just how cruise has boomed since pandemic. There are 26 new ship launches this year, led by the MSC World America, Norwegian Aqua and Star Princess with Royal’s Star of the Seas and Celebrity Xcel still to come.

A record 70,000 Irish people took a cruise in 2024, driven by a bounce from the launch of Icon of the Seas which lifted the waterline for all cruise lines, and the figure could reach 80,000 in 2025. It is a big return for an industry that seemed to have been driven seriously off course damaged by pandemic.

It is worth remembering that despite all the wave (sorry) of publicity there are only about 300 ocean ships operating in the world. The industry is restricted by shipyards and the number of new ships that we can launch, meaning growth is around 3.5pc to 5pc each year. Cruise lines love that, they can charge more. More importantly, consumers still find cruising incredible value. As Sean Lemass once said, the rising tide lifts all boats.

Groningen begins

Is this the most unusual new route for summer 2025? A weekly charter service (it is an inbound route) will operate from Groningen in The Netherlands to Ireland West Airport in Knock for BBI Travel.

Eoghan Corry is Ireland’s leading travel commentator and aviation specialist in Ireland, as well as being a historian, author and broadcaster. He has extensively travelled as a travel journalist and has been a speaker and moderator at tourism and aviation conferences including the World Tourism Forum, Tourism Ireland and Thailand Tourism.