Media

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) confirmed today that total air traffic safely handled through Irish airspace and at the main airports increased by +3% (103,191 movements) in May 2017 compared to the same month in 2016.

The IAA’s analysis of North Atlantic Communications flights (Europe /US Flights) saw an increase of +4.9% in May 2017 to 40,114, when compared to May 2016.

There was an increase of +2.1% in Ireland’s overflight traffic movements (flights, which do not land in Ireland) to 31,565 during May 2017 in comparison to May 2016.

Commenting on the announcement, Eamonn Brennan, Chief Executive of the IAA said;

I’m very pleased with last month’s performance for overflight traffic. Since the start of the year we’ve safely handled nearly half a million flights, buoyed primarily by increased traffic between Europe and North America and sustained growth at Dublin Airport. We operate a state-of-the-art and very reliable air traffic management system, which has the capacity to handle more traffic in the years ahead.  

In relation to international arrivals and departures, the commercial terminal traffic for Shannon, Dublin and Cork airports was up by +2.6% in May 2017, when compared to May 2016.

Individually, the May 2017 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 +4.1% with an average of 629 daily commercial movements at Dublin.
• Commercial terminal flights at Cork were down by –8.5%, with an average of 58 commercial daily movements at Cork.
• Commercial terminal flights at Shannon were down by -1.7% with an average of 57 commercial daily movements at Shannon.

An analysis of the May 2017 data, from EUROCONTROL, also shows that seven of Ireland’s Top ten “Airport Pairs” grew when compared to May 2016. The most significant growth was for Schiphol/Amsterdam – Dublin (+40%), Newark – London/Heathrow (+21.6%) and Edinburgh – Dublin (+11.6%).