A £60 million (€76.18 million) upgrade at Cork airport is to begin by the end of the year, the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, has announced.

Ms O'Rourke was in Cork yesterday to perform the official opening of the £7.5 million, 81bed Great Southern Hotel that adjoins Cork airport.

The airport upgrade would include an extension to the terminal building, new air bridges and a multi-storey carpark, Ms O'Rourke said. The investment was intended to allow the airport cater for three million passengers annually by 2003.

"The immediate plans for Cork airport involve development expenditure of over £60 million by the end of 2003 to bring capacity up to three million passengers per annum. Passenger throughput in 2000 was almost 1.7 million, an increase of 12 per cent on 1999 and an overall increase of more than 50 per cent in the last five years.

"The longer-term plan envisages Cork airport growing to five million passengers per annum and Aer Rianta expects to invest in the region of £100 million in developing the airport throughout this decade," Ms O'Rourke said.

It is expected that planning permission for the work will be sought next month and that work will begin by the end of the year. It is also anticipated that airport management in Cork will shortly announce flights from the airport to Hungary and the Czech Republic, and that a second daily schedule flight to Amsterdam will be introduced.

Ms O'Rourke said the question of extending the runway at Cork airport to enable transatlantic flights to use the facility had not been considered in the present plans but might be discussed at a future stage.