Number of passengers travelling through Irish airports up 5% annually
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Some 12.4m passengers passed through the five main Irish airports in the three months from July to September, an increase of 5% on the same period in 2023.
New figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Monday revealed that more than 31.8m passengers passed through the main Irish airports in the first nine months of 2024, which was 1.7m more passengers than in the first nine months of 2023.
Over 80,000 flights were handled by Ireland's five main airports in the three months to September, with Dublin handling 84% of all flights at 67,365, while Cork handled 8% of all flights at 6,245.
London-Heathrow, Amsterdam-Schiphol, and Malaga were the busiest routes for passengers travelling through Dublin airport in the three months to September. Meanwhile, the top route for Cork and Shannon was London-Heathrow, while it was London-Luton for Knock and Kerry.
Air freight handled by Irish airports between July and September was up 11% when compared with the same period in 2023.
Speaking on the release, statistician Damien Lenihan noted that in the third quarter of 2024, more than eight out of every ten passengers (84%) on international flights in the five main airports were travelling to or from Europe.
"The two most popular countries of origin/destination were the United Kingdom and Spain. Outside of Europe, the United States of America was the most popular country of origin/destination.”