Sustained Growth Continues at Irish Airports
Air traffic at the three State airports continues to show sustained growth with total flights up by 11.8% in February 2016, when compared to 2015. This strong growth is being led by Dublin, which recorded robust growth of 12.2% in February. Shannon and Cork also recorded significant growth of 9.9% and 8.7% respectively. This is the first time in over 12 months that all three State airports have recorded growth in the same month.
A number of Ireland’s Top ten “Airport Pairs” performed very well in February 2015. The most significant growth was for Schiphol Amsterdam – Dublin (up 70.3%), followed by Dublin – Birmingham (up 42.7%), Manchester – Dublin (up 27.8%) and London/Gatwick – Dublin (up 15.8%).
There was an increase of 7.7% in Ireland’s en route traffic movements (flights that pass through Irish airspace but do not land, while the IAA’s North Atlantic Communications flights (Europe / North America) saw an increase of 8.8% in February 2016. There were 21,035 en route traffic movements and 30,309 North Atlantic Communications flights during February 2016.
The total traffic handled by the IAA increased by 10.3% in February 2016.
Eamonn Brennan, Chief Executive IAA said: “We are continuing to see sustained growth, particularly at Dublin, and for the first time in over a year all three of the country’s State airports have recorded growth. We are pleased to see both Cork and Shannon airports recoding strong increases in February, a clear indication that the economic recovery is spreading. Traffic between Europe and North America is also continuing to perform very well.”