Media

Dublin, 12th December 2016: With just two weeks left in the year, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) confirmed today that 2016 will be a record year for Irish aviation as it forecasts it will safely handle over 1.1m flights in Irish controlled airspace and at the three State airports. 

By the end of November, total flights safely handled by the IAA in 2016 stood at 1,026,000, up 8.6% on the same 11 months in 2015. This includes;

• 8% increase in overflight traffic movements to 315,698 (flights which do not land in Ireland)
• 8% increase in North Atlantic Communications flights to 440,761 (flights between Europe/US)
• 10.5% increase in Terminal movements to 269,431 (flights at Dublin, Cork and Shannon)  

Eamonn Brennan, Chief Executive of the IAA said, "Altogether, air traffic has expanded by nearly 9% this year, driven by very strong lifts at both Dublin Airport and through Irish airspace on flights between Europe and North America. What's encouraging about 2016 is the fact that the growth is across all fields and not limited to one area. Cork and Shannon have both recorded gains in 2016, up 12% and 2.4% respectively.”

Reflecting on the key developments of 2016, he said, "There's no doubting it, the continued growth of Ryanair is phenomenal - they'll carry over 119 million passengers in 2016 (financial year ending March 2017). At the same time, Are Lingus have really capitalised on being part of the IAG group with a significant expansion of their Transatlantic operation (+15%). We’ve seen Dublin Airport going from strength to strength so the announcement to build the new parallel runway was a very important milestone and the recent positive decision by the US Government concerning Norwegian Air International is great news for both Cork and Shannon airports. Our leasing industry continues to thrive as Ireland maintains its place at the centre of the global aviation financing industry, with nine of the world’s top 10 airline lessors based in Ireland.” 

Looking ahead he said, "2017 will be a challenging year for the industry with significant increases expected in available seat capacity and this is likely to drive down air fares in Europe. The traffic growth will present challenges for the IAA, but I’m confident that our people and our systems will cope with these increases. We’ll also commence work on the first noise review of Dublin Airport in accordance with our imminent designation as the competent Authority for airport noise. We’re preparing already.”

Focusing on November 2016 alone

Total flights handled by the IAA in November 2016 was 81,279 movements - an increase of 9.3% over November 2015. This Includes total terminal movements, North Atlantic Communications flights and overflights. 

There was an increase of 6% in Ireland’s overflight traffic movements in November 2016 to 24,580, in comparison to November 2015. The IAA’s analysis of North Atlantic Communications flights saw an increase of 7.3% in November 2016 to 34,496, when compared to November 2015.

In relation to international arrivals and departures, the commercial terminal traffic for Shannon, Dublin and Cork airports was up by 3.5% in November 2016, when compared to November 2015. Individually, the November 2016 figures for the three State airports, when compared to the same month in the previous year are:

• Commercial terminal flights at Dublin were up by +3.7% with an average of 509 daily commercial movements at Dublin.

• Commercial terminal flights at Cork were down by -0.3%, with an average of 44 commercial daily movements at Cork.

• Commercial terminal flights at Shannon were up by +5.5% with an average of 45 commercial daily movements at Shannon.

An analysis of the November 2016 data, from EUROCONTROL, also shows that there was significant growth on a number of ‘Airport Pairs’ including London/Gatwick – Dublin (+20.7%), Schiphol/Amsterdam – Dublin (+19.1%) and Newark – London/Heathrow (+8.4%).

EUROCONTROL also show that in November, key changes in Irish flows with other countries included:

• Canada +6.2%

• Canary Islands +30.5%

• Germany +13.7%

• Iceland +26.7%

• Italy +11.0%

• USA +10.2%

• Spain +18.3%