Cork Airport is gearing up for the closure of it's main runway on Monday for a ten week period.
It comes as airports are seeing their average weekly air traffic now at 50% of pre-pandemic levels.
Last month 74,000 passengers travelled through Cork Aairport almost twice the 40,000 that used the airport last August.
However, it remains significantly down on 2019 numbers which saw 2.6 million passengers compared to an expected 200,000 this year.
Currently, six airlines operate 20 routes from Cork. Pre-Covid, there were nine airlines operating flights on a total of 50 routes.
Parts of the runway are over 30 years old and the entire 2.1km runway will be replaced under the €40 million project.
Speaking to RedFM News Kevin Cullinane from Cork Airport insists this is the best time to conduct the works.
"No option has zero impact, we've looked at the minimum we can do to disrupt air travel.
"The best option is to do this quickly over a ten year period.
"Our runway is now at the end of its natural life, parts of it are over 30 years old.
"What we've been progressing over the last number of months is essentially what would normally be a three year programme of works into a condensed 12 month period to get the funding in place before last Christmas, and get all the design work ready so we'll be shovel-ready for a very intensive 10 week period."
