Airport bosses are hoping for a record-breaking year in numbers flying to and from the west of Ireland, it emerged today.
Latest figures show December and the Christmas season was the busiest ever at Ireland West Airport Knock, with 38,000 passengers passing through.
Although overall traveller numbers fell last year, airport chiefs have set an ambitious target to have annual growth up to almost 700,000.
"Following five consecutive years of double digit growth, our overall passenger numbers for 2007 were 567,000, a decline of 9 per cent on the previous year," said Ireland West Airport Knock chief executive Robert Grealis.
"However, our new routes together with the good news that air carrier Bmibaby will start a new scheduled route to Glasgow International Airport in February, we are projecting that passenger volumes in 2008 will increase by a quarter to almost 700,000, which will be the busiest year ever in the history of the airport."
But Mr Grealis said the airport faced challenges, having lost almost a quarter of its annual passengers due to the withdrawal of a twice daily services to London Gatwick by Easyjet and Ryanair in late 2006.
The introduction of scheduled transatlantic services to New York and Boston in 2007 was a boost for the airport, however, which has carried over 30,000 US passengers during the summer.