Irish Air Traffic Figures Continue Strong Upward Surge
8th August 2014: Irish air traffic figures continue to experience strong growth with total flights in Irish airspace up 1.8% in July when compared to the same month last year. The combined figures for international arrivals and departures at the State airports are particularly encouraging with robust growth of 3.8%.
Ireland’s North Atlantic Communications flights (Europe and North America) likewise experienced strong growth of 2.9%, while en route traffic movements (flights that pass through Irish airspace but do not land) saw an increase of 0.7%.
There was an average of 1,712 daily flights during July 2014. The busiest day was 17th July with 1,853 flights in Irish airspace. There were 29,888 en route traffic movements and 41,369 North Atlantic Communications flights during July 2014.
Eamonn Brennan, Chief Executive, Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said: ‘These very positive air traffic figures are further testament to the continued recovery of the aviation industry, both in Ireland and the world at large. Dublin and Shannon are driving growth for international arrivals and departures, while our en route and North Atlantic Communications figures reflect the wider global upturn’.
International arrivals and departures at the State airports of Shannon, Dublin and Cork saw strong growth of 3.8% in July 2014, when compared to July 2013.
Individually, the figures for the three State airports, when compared to the same month in the previous year are:
- Dublin up 3.3% with an average of 541 daily commercial movements.
- Cork down 5.4% with an average of 66 daily commercial movements.
- Shannon up 18.3% with an average of 74 commercial daily movements.
On a cumulative basis, commercial terminal traffic for Shannon, Dublin and Cork airports for the period January to July 2014 was up by 5.9% when compared to the same period in 2013. This growth in commercial traffic is largely attributable to the introduction of a number of new routes by Ryanair, Aer Lingus, WestJet and other North American operators.
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An analysis of the July 2014 data, from EUROCONTROL, also shows that four of Ireland’s Top ten “Airport Pairs” (from a billing perspective) showed growth (or neutral growth), when compared to July 2013. The most significant growth was for Manchester – Dublin (+9.1%), Newark – London/Heathrow (+6.3%) and London/Heathrow – Dublin (+4.3%).
In relation to Ireland’s major departing and arriving flows during July 2014, the following data from EUROCONTROL indicate:
