American Airlines has announced it will operate new services from Ireland to Chicago and Boston from next May.
A Chicago-Dublin and a Boston-Shannon flight will operate daily during the peak summer travel season and five days a week during the rest of the year.
The Shannon-Boston route will be served by 188-seat Boeing 757s and the Dublin-Chicago routes will be served by 211-seat Boeing 767-300 aircraft. A cargo service will operate on both routes.
The Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr O'Donoghue, said he was "delighted" at the decision.
"This new service will greatly help to expand tourism to Ireland from the United States and allow many more Americans to experience Ireland as a world-class holiday destination," he said.
Mr Paul O'Toole, chief executive of Tourism Ireland, said the new services will substantially expand air travel options for US travellers and open up Ireland even more as a holiday destination for the highly lucrative North American market.
"Close on one million US visitors came to Ireland in 2004 and Tourism Ireland has set a target to grow this number by a further 7.8 per cent in 2005. This new service will do much to help us achieve this ambitious target."
The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) said the new services be a "considerable catalyst" to achieve ambitious targets planned for growth in the US market.
But it also said the announcement "placed further priority" on the speedy renegotiation of the current US-Ireland bilateral agreement, which would remove the current constraints - such as the Shannon stopover - on US routes to and from Ireland.
Mr Richard Bourke, president of the IHF, said a revised US-Ireland air bilateral agreement could facilitate a doubling of the current direct air routes from the United States that could increase by up to 25 per cent per annum the number of US visitors to Ireland.
The IHF president also said today's announcement, in tandem with Ryanair's investment in Shannon airport last week, "places further emphasis on the Government's need to give the immediate go ahead to the development of a competing second terminal at Dublin Airport".
Mr Craig Kreeger, American Airlines' vice president Europe and Pacific, said the airline looked forward to adding Ireland to its network next year.
American Airlines, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is the world's largest carrier. The company's combined fleet numbers more than 1,000 aircraft and the addition of Dublin and Shannon to its route network will give the airline a total of up to 280 nonstop flights a week each way across the Atlantic.