Eoghan Corry Talks Travel – September 2025
TUI’s shock announcement, less flights forecast for 2026, and are cruise companies getting greedier? Eoghan Corry has this month’s travel talking points.
This month’s travel industry update from Eoghan Corry covers the growing influence of cruise holidays, TUI’s decision to withdraw its aircraft from Ireland, the lure of Lapland, the latest winter route launches, and lots more.
Are cruise companies getting greedier?
Cruise companies are notoriously avaricious. They like to keep their passengers on a well-lubricated leash, either confined to the ship or somewhere they can control of every euro of their spend. As captives, albeit happy cocktail-quaffing captives, that also means controlling as much of your shore time as they can get away with, or at least the shore time spend.
If you stroll through towns such as Juneau or Sitka, you will find lots of jewellery shops that line the streets. All of them are owned by cruise companies, the very people who have just dispersed their passengers ashore and give them recommendations where to shop.
The cruise line will also want you not to book shore excursions with operators that are not directly affiliated with the company, even when they are cheaper, which they often are. This can be problematic in Europe, where they haven’t quite managed to purchase the Sagrada Família or the Sistine Chapel (yet).
Under the Caribbean sun, things are more laid back. More and more private islands and resorts are being opened by the cruise companies, so when the passengers go ashore they are not leaving the cruise company behind, just experiencing another product. Sometimes even the bartenders are the same as those on the ship. The company getting another bite of the cocktail cherry, so to speak.
Royal Caribbean, who already own CocoCay in The Bahamas and Labadee in Haiti (which they are temporarily not using because of fears of unrest), are developing new beach cubs in Cozumel in Mexico and Paradise Island in The Bahamas. NCL own Harvest Cay in Belize.
Also in the Bahamas, NCL own Great Stirrup Cay, Disney own Castaway Cay, Holland America own Half Moon Cay, Princess own Princess Cays, MSC own Ocean Cay and Carnival own Celebration Key. The cruise passenger will soon be able to spend an entire week at sea without stopping at an authentic port. Where will it end? Expect someone to strike a real estate deal to buy Venezuela someday soon.
Knocked for ’26
Prepare for a shock next summer. Book TUI for 2026 and you see a non-TUI airline beneath the booking. The German holiday company was thinking of pulling one of its two based aircraft out of Ireland. It got carried away and pulled both. Belfast retains its TUI flights for now, and even has a new service to Punta Cana.
But the retreat from the charter market in Ireland is being interpreted as a test for the entire business model of Europe’s largest package holiday operator, which has moved from what used to be called vertical integration to letting someone else take the risk on the aviation side, Aer Lingus and Ryanair for Europe, American Airlines for Mexico. Ireland is a test case for what happens next elsewhere.
As TUI exit the charter market, Dublin is losing 17 routes, Cork five and Shannon three. The renewed service to Enfidha in Tunisia is one of the casualties. A basic service to Marella cruises will be retained, as will the Crystal ski charters to Geneva. But the real impact will be on the price of flights to the Spanish, Portuguese and Greek playgrounds where we once experienced the choice of a TUI all-inclusive service. When capacity and competition go down, prices go up.
Price not be the most important impact the change will make on our holiday experience. TUI’s customer service has been exemplary over the past five years of difficulties, pandemic, fires in Rhodes and Sicily and general disruption. They were the once most ready to offer refunds and rebookings, and they had the power to do so when they had their own chartered service. No longer. In a market dominated by two airlines in Dublin, and one in Cork and Shannon, the bump will be enough to shake the smile off our holiday selfies next summer.
Airport traffic will be down next year
Partly because of TUI’s retreat, the number of routes from the major Irish airports will be down in 2026 by our calculations. As things stand, Dublin will be back to 293 routes from the current 307, even allowing for three start-ups already announced, Cancún from Aer Lingus (Jan 6), Dalaman from SunExpress (Apr 1) and Tirana from Ryanair (Mar 30).
Cork will be up to 55 from 54, counting a new route to Antalya from SunExpress (May 16). Shannon will be down to 37. Belfast’s two airports, where passenger numbers are flat (down 0.8% in the first six months of 2025), will see the number of routes decline by 16. There may be further announcements of new routes in the coming weeks, with lots of gossip about Aer Lingus next choice of trans-Atlantic A321XLR destination. The smart money is on Pittsburgh.
Star of the Seas
Some thoughts from my pre-launch cruise on board Star of the Seas, the largest cruise ship on the planet, two rope widths longer and a jacuzzi more than last year’s largest cruise ship (Icon of the Seas) and, no doubt, two rope widths shorter and a jacuzzi less than next year’s largest cruise ship, (Legend of the Seas).
The bits that work are brilliant, the bits that do not work are baffling. The swim and tonic bar should presumably be kept separate from the children’s area, more akin to the adults only section at the back of the ship. At sea days are no longer a comfortable option for these mega ships, because the available pool space is filled and the sunbeds are too limited to cope with the sheer volume of passengers, the equivalent of a town the size of Trim.
The Oasis class chips had four medium sized pools, Icon class has opted for one large pool instead, and it does not work. The Aquadome, a great concept, needs more seating. The big bang entertainment is medium bang. That said, of course we loved the ship, and loved to dine in Hooked, the seafood restaurant or hang out in Park Café. And the less said about the karaoke bar, the better. Everyone to their own.
Read: 20 Top tips for first time cruise holidays
Wintering Out
Are Ryanair playing hard to get this winter? They have not yet announced which Spanish regional airports they will be cutting for winter when they trim 1 million seats of their inventory, a broadside in their annual spat with the airport operators AENA over fees, but Dublin’s routes to Santander and Seville look vulnerable.
Madrid from Shannon is already on sale twice weekly from October 28 (€90 return in November without a bag), they have not yet revealed a winter programme from Dublin and Cork.
Aer Lingus have announced Tromsø, a big surprise, and Turin, where they go head to head with Ryanair, no doubt counting on a bigger share of ski charters than their competitor. Cork is getting Prague from Aer Lingus on October 23 and Geneva on December 20, a resumed flight rather than a newbie, and also a ski favourite as it serves some of the marquee French resorts like Chamonix, Deux Alpes, Les Arcs, Val Thorens and Val d’Isere.
Belfast City gets Edinburgh on October 26 from Easyjet, to give Aer Lingus a run for their money, they carry 130,000 passengers a year on the route. Belfast International gets Vienna from Jet2 on October 23. With a few weeks to go we may see another announcement or two.
Read: 10 Great Winter Breaks with Aer Lingus Sale Fares
The lure of Lapland
You do not need a trip to Lapland to learn what we expected all along, Santa lives in a shopping mall. Yet Ireland cannot get enough of Santa Claus flights. Only England and Japan transport more contented tots to the north pole than Ireland (ignore the temptation to hike, the north pole is still 2,600km away, the distance from Dublin to Kolkata/Calcutta).
This winter we have two new Lapland flights, from Shannon with Ryanair and from Belfast with Easyjet, on top of the two airports served from Dublin, Kittilä and Rovaneimi. Surprisingly the high-margin market has not stopped jingling for the tour operators since the entry of two low cost airlines to the service.
While Ryanair will bring you there in November or January for €55 each way, there is nothing to be gained by taking a flight-only in peak season. As for me Canterbury, Easyjet, Ryanair and TUI (and grandpa), we believe.
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.
