Eoghan Corry Talks Travel – July 2026
Aer Lingus cancellations, high temperatures in Europe and Spain set to ban smoking on beaches. Eoghan Corry covers all this and more in his latest column.
As temperatures soar in Europe and fewer people travel to the States, perhaps Iceland is the place to be for this year’s total solar eclipse? Eoghan Corry shares his take on the key travel talking points this month.
Aer Lingus retreats
When Aer Lingus announced its intention to take two A330s and four A320 family out of the shamrock fleet, much of attention was on job losses and the eight cancelled routes. Four trans-Atlantic and four European rotations is a big loss to the prestige and expansion plans of the airlines, but the vast majority of passengers will scarcely notice, unless they are flying direct to Denver, which too few people were (“end of popular route” is one of those baffling media anachronisms).
The two A330s taken from the fleet correspond to those which had been based in Manchester and were subject to the archaic rules reimposed after Brexit.
Some Heathrow services will be trimmed, and winter will be thinner. Seattle will be back for summer, when Americans tend to visit Ireland (the ratio is 3:1 inbound versus outbound on many routes). With the proper airport supports, even struggling trans Atlantic routes can be maintained. All the cancelled services are west coast USA. East coast routes such as Hartford were kept.
To quote Mark Twain, Hartford’s most famous resident who would, no doubt, be a regular on the Dublin service if he was still around, might, say “the report of my death was an exaggeration.”
The heat is on
Heat waves are nothing new in European tourism, as might be apparent to anyone who recalls the El Niño pattern heatwaves of the past such as 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16. What is different about the scorch-up of 2022 and 2026 is the level of coverage and the reaction of the travel industry to that coverage: The word-weary traveller (not the same thing as the world-weary traveller) has been besieged by words such as “coolcation”, first used by Condé Nast Traveler in late 2023 and, yes, it was clever at the time.
The core description remains the same; heat wave, ola de calor, la canicule, onda de calor, ondata di calore, the stuff of headlines, but at the moment, there is no reason to cancel a holiday. I will continue to monitor the situation and post updates on TravelExtra.ie.
When wildfires raged in the Gironde and Cap Ferret, the overall number of tourists evacuated was 3,000 from campsites such as Camping du Truc Vert and Camping Les Pastourelles. The number of international tourists in both Spain and France on any given day in summer this year is two million. The number of Irish holiday makers is about 100,000 in Spain (the equivalent of the population of county Kilkenny) and about 40,000 in France.
Camping La Sirène in Argelès-sur-Mer, the nearest site to the crisis that is popular with Irish holiday makers, remains open for business and is safe, despite nearby regional wildfire disruptions. There is no need to cancel a holiday, despite those images on our TV screens.
The law changes on the beach
Smokers LOVE Spain, largely because the cigarettes are about a third of the price at home, and they have more places they can indulge. That may be about to change. Spain is considering banning smoking on beaches, which is a big step.
Regional authorities in Italy has also introduced a raft of bather caps on beaches, not the type you wear, but a limit on the number who can use the facility. Other councils have introduced charges, laws about waterbeds and what tourists are allowed to wear. Politicians love making up laws for their beaches and surprising tourists with them. Life is indeed a beach, and not always in a good way.
What’s happening stateside
Ireland’s love affair with America, which at first appeared undented by the Donald, have taken an unhappy turn in recent months. January was down 6%, albeit off a low base. Then things got worse, down 20% in April, 12% in May and 10% in June. This came despite a massive increase in capacity on trans-Atlantic flights from the US carriers.
For the first six months of 2026 Irish visiting numbers are down 7% on last year and 11% on pre-pandemic, with no sign things are improving. The declines are matching those of the big markets in Europe, France and Germany, the first to turn against America when it went orange.
The winter may be worse, if Aer Lingus withdraws services. The loss of Denver, Seattle, Minneapolis and Las Vegas will not be massively significant, but if New York, through which 53% of our westbound passengers go, is trimmed back, Ireland may slip irreversibly down the USA’s visitor charts, and we will all end up paying more for our trans-Atlantic flights.
Whole of the moon
Iceland is not just enjoying its moment in the sun when it comes to the coolcation charts, it is about to enjoy its moment in the moon as well. August 12 is a chance to see one of the great natural phenomena that our wonderful planet occasional serves up, a total eclipse of the sun.
The best place to see it is also the one with the highest likelihood of cloud cover: the Westfjords, Snæfellsnes & Reykjanes Peninsulas and, indeed, any part of Iceland’s tourist golden circle.
There are more accessible alternatives. The eclipse takes place in the late afternoon and early evening when the Sun will be very low in the sky, near the horizon, meaning it is important to avoid mountains and to find an unobstructed western horizon is central to the experience, so many people might be heading to Spain instead. Palma de Mallorca is one of the prime spots with two minutes cover.
If it all goes dark in Santa Ponsa this August, it is not the hangover. Or not JUST the hangover. Total eclipse of the fun.
Holyhead woes
Disappointing news for users of the Irish Ferries fast craft, the last one operating on the Irish Seas central corridor. Jonathan Swift will not be returning for any summer services due to repair work at Holyhead port.
Irish Ferries and Stena Line continue to share a single berth at Holyhead while work continues to remedy damage to the pier, which caused such disruption to our cargo trade and tourism at the end of 2024. Repair works were to have been finished by August, but will now continue until the autumn.
Irish Ferries have been told they would be able to operate the Swift after October, and that is way too late for the season and the leisure traffic who help pay the craft’s expensive fuel bill. As Swift himself wrote when he was stranded off Holyhead: “I am where my enemies would wish.”
Andy Moran International Airport
No sooner had Mayo won their first All-Ireland football title in 75 years than the memes revved up their engines and took off. Ireland West International Airport has enough difficulties already distinguishing itself from the old name of Knock airport without the jokes flying about renaming the airport “Andy Moran International Airport.”
It is a playful mimic of the suggestion that Dublin airport should be renamed Troy Parrott international airport. Either avoid Mayo completely or head straight down there. The county has gone nuts.
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.
