Eoghan Corry Talks Travel – May 2026

Last minute deals likely as fuel shortage fears impact sales – read the latest travel news in Eoghan Corry’s new column.

Eoghan Corry rounds up the latest travel stories making headlines, including how concerns over fuel shortages are impacting holiday bookings, Aer Lingus’s rollout of Starlink WiFi, the 40th anniversary of Ireland West Knock Airport, and a new opportunity to walk the Camino from Cork. Here is his take on the key travel talking points making waves this month.

Playing the fuel with airlines

There was an unexpected side effect from those weeks of endless discussion over jet fuel supply, price, and hedging. Will flights be cancelled? Will tabs be empty? As a result of the uncertainty created by this narrative, holiday booking took a hit.

It was not a collapse, but was just enough to scare travel agents, tour operators and even airlines into ramping up the summer offers. The wizards of the web who decided what prices we pay spent January and February preparing for higher fares and fat profits. Not anymore. Instead of charging more for flights, which airlines do anytime they get a chance, they have to discount.

Michael O’Leary says close-in bookings are strong but yield is not as high as expected. July and August bookings are softer than expected. Ryanair’s series of flash sales, (you know the drill: book by midnight Thursday or you will miss out), is an indication of the concerns over what is behind the smartphone screen.

There have been five in recent weeks, all to different paces and with different time-restrictions. Travel agents say bookings are down 20%. Cruise bookings are even more damaged by the negative publicity relating to two separate virus outbreaks. The summer is looking for like 2022 than 2024, which is good for consumers and bad for airlines.

Fuel failures

Each aviation crisis brings its own cast of calamities. The first Gulf war saw off Pan Am. Nine-eleven killed Sabena and Swiss. The Global Financial recession finished FlyGlobespan, Xl and half a dozen more.

The current fuel crisis has seen off Spirit, the USA’s sixth largest airline, and there are rumours of more casualties in Europe. Each of these highlight an anomaly in our consumer protection laws.

Travel agents are bonded, airlines are not. The logic for this dates back to ancient times when airlines were government funded. It makes no sense nowadays.

Aer Lingus uncorks new routes

Most aviation routes are announced for end of March, as with Ryanair’s new Dublin to Tirana service, or May, as with Aer Lingus services to Raleigh-Durham and Pittsburgh.

Read: New routes from Ireland in 2026

Cork waited until June to commence their new Santiago do Compostelo seasonal service, twice weekly, operating every Monday and Thursday until October 2. It reminds us of our love affair with the Camino. Ireland is the ninth biggest international participant in the walking route, usually from St Jean Pied de Ports to Santiago, ahead of countries with much larger populations.

It is a big project. The route is 775km and 35 days, best taken in bursts of five days or so. No one is sure how exactly did it managed to capture our imagination just as religion was going out of fashion. Just 67 people walked the Camino in 1972, Even in 1980 it was only 209, and 5,000 in 1990. Last year it was 530,919. I’m packing the cockle shell.

Farmer’s Cross to Frankfurt.

Further good news for Cork. Lufthansa, having abruptly closed their CityLink subsidiary in response to a series of strikes, has also given Cork a reprieve with a twice weekly Frankfurt service from the mainline airline.

The anomaly of having one of the Cork flights already served by mainline airline, which made saving the service easier. CityLink was due to close in 2027 but the airline brought forward the closure, discomfited by fuel price and belligerent unions.

Knock, knock, who’s there?

Ireland West Airport Knock generated an A380-load of publicity when they celebrated the 40th anniversary of the airport. Our trip to the tribute evening hosted by Tommy Marren in the airport terminal gave us a hint of the great sense of achievement and pride that the airport has brought across Ireland’s forgotten province.

Hundreds of people bought tickets to attend. Michael English sung the anthems of Knock and Connacht with heart-thumping pride. Marren interviewed three panels of people who helped complete the dream and Gerry Slevin added audience contributions.

It is all available online, but you had to have been there to appreciate the emotion of it all. This was more than an airport, it was a statement by the west to 1980s Ireland that the west matters, just over 12% of the population but a huge percentage of the energy.

Knock, knock, and nobody came

The real master stroke of Monsignor James Horanwas not just in building Knock airport, but building it on a scale upon that could not be ignored. As the airport enters its next decade, nobody has to go looking for planning permission to extend the runway or lift passenger restrictions, a formidable task in the changed environment of the 2020s.

In the forty years since the Monsignor stretched his arms out into the sunlight, three Irish regional airports have fallen by the wayside: Galway, Sligo and Waterford. Like many god salesman, what Fr Horan sold the politicians of 1986 was an illusion: aircraft queuing up to land with planeloads of pilgrims that would make Knock the new Lourdes. That bit never happened.

Read: Top 10 holidays from Knock Ireland West airport in 2026

Not a single airline service has been started for religious devotees in the four decades since then, although once-of flights have landed. Knock became an outbound airport and will likely remain so. It also emerged that Coillte, who owned part of the land used for the airport, were completely unaware of the plans until after construction ahd started.

Another anomaly amid the festivities emerged when Christy Moore sent a video message and sang the Knock song. He omitted the refrain, common at concerts through the 1980s and 1990s: “did Nato donate the dough, Eighteen thousand feet of runway is an awful long way to go.” Probably a good thing in the circumstances

Staying connected

We have had a few chances to try the new, faster Aer Lingus wifi on board Saint Dalamán, aircraft registration EI-EIN, which sounds like the chorus of the Old MacDonald children’s song. It is faster than the wifi at home. This will change the future of inflight entertainment as more and more aircraft are fitted with the tech. Saint Dalamán. The wifi is free. It sounds like the punchline of Niall Toibín joke.

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.