Passenger numbers soar at Dublin and Cork airports

Dublin Airport had its busiest day ever in its 76-year history when more than 100,000 passengers travelled through the airport on June 24.

The airport attributes the growth in the number of people travelling to a range of factors, including the many new routes and services at Dublin Airport, lower oil prices, which make for competitive fares, the good performance of the Irish economy, and the falling unemployment rates.

Last year, Dublin Airport had a record year, with more than 25m passengers travelling through the airport. Some 10.3m passengers have passed through the airport in the first five months of this year — a 15% increase on 2015.

Dublin Airport currently has direct flights to over 180 destinations in 40 countries on four continents.

Traffic at Cork Airport is also continuing to soar with latest figures released by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) showing further growth in June, with terminal flights up by 19.1% compared with the same month last year, the biggest increase of any Irish airport for the month.

The figures show that, while the amount of traffic safely handled by air traffic control nationally climbed 8.1% in June, traffic at Cork Airport grew at almost twice this rate.

Year-to-date passenger numbers at the airport also continue to rise, with figures to the end of June showing an 8.5% increase.

Meanwhile, Ireland South MEP Deirdre Clune said she is now pressuring the European Commission to immediately exhaust all avenues, including legal arbitration, to put political pressure on the US authorities to grant a licence to Norwegian Airlines to fly from Cork and Shannon to Boston.

“It’s over to the US to make a decision on the licence, and now the European Commission must heap the pressure on them to live up to their obligations under the EU/US open skies agreement. If we need to move into arbitration, then so be it”.

“We need a decision, and political events in the US seem to be stalling such a decision, as opposition mounts from US unions and established airlines who are unwilling to accept new competition in the marketplace,” she said.