"Omey", the loggerhead turtle which got washed up off the Galway coast earlier this year, is to be flown home to his native Canary Islands next week on a holiday charter flight from Shannon.
Found last January on Omey Island, the turtle, which has since grown to 3.5kg, has been staying at the Oceanworld aquarium in Dingle, Co Kerry, sharing a tank with eight sharks and two other turtles.
Oceanworld's general manager, Ms Maire Griffin, said Omey had now the strength to survive in the ocean again, and she was checking out ways of getting him back to the Canaries.
"We thought we would have to fly him to Manchester and asked at Shannon if they could arrange to have him shipped to Manchester," she explained.
Instead, Aer Rianta marketing manager at Shannon, Mr Declan Power, pointed out that the airport had weekly sun charters to the Canary Islands.
He arranged for Falcon Travel to include Omey among its passengers on Saturday of next week.
"We were planning to fly him out this weekend, but paperwork has not been completed, so his homecoming has been put back for a week," Ms Griffin said.
The turtle will travel to Shannon by van from Dingle in a special box with air-holes and heating.
"We'll be spraying him down with salt water before he says goodbye to Oceanworld and again before he takes off from Shannon," she said.
Oceanworld made travel arrangements for another loggerhead turtle last year. Ms Griffin said the aquarium was already lining up some more turtle passengers.
"We have two more in our tanks which are not yet fit to travel. One had serious damage to a fin which we suspect is the result of a tangling with a shark and he won't be ready to go back to the ocean for quite a while, and we have another which is also still recovering fitness to return home."