Airlines welcome resumption of travel as 22,500 pass through Dublin Airport on first day

Passengers in Terminal 1 at Dublin Airport today as travel restrictions were lifted. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA

Despite a number of issues for travellers, airlines have welcomed the return of non-essential travel.

Some 22,500 passengers arrived at and departed Dublin Airport today, 87% less than pre-Covid levels during the same period in 2019. In 2019, 116,000 people passed through Dublin Airport per day in peak season.

For the past two weeks, the daily average for arriving and departing passenger numbers had been 14,000.

Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson said the EU digital travel cert was working well and will gradually become part of the travel experience, like presenting a passport.

Strong bookings

The lion’s share of passengers were vaccinated, he said, and he predicted that travel would shortly return to “some level of normality”. Bookings were very strong, he added, as travel was returning to normal throughout Europe and in the US.

Mr Wilson called on Tourism Minister Eamon Ryan to implement the Aviation Task Force report as there were much more affordable airports elsewhere in Europe, and in other countries, governments had “bailed out" their airlines.

“We’re not going to get that traffic back,” said Mr Wilson.

The country manager for Emirates airline, Enda Corneille, likewise said that they were experiencing high levels of bookings, adding the digital travel cert was working well and anything that gets people flying will be good for all airlines.

“Travel will become a badge of honour," said Mr Wilson. "It will go from a trickle of demand to a tsunami. We’re already seeing strong bookings for the rest of year and especially at Christmas.” 

The minister of state for international and road transport and logistics Hildegarde Naughton told the Irish Examiner that work was underway to ensure everyone who is due a cert for international travel will get one.

'Helpline issues'

"There have been issues with the helpline, but I can assure you the Government is working very hard in order to get that system back up and running as quickly as possible," said Ms Naughton. 

"This was the number one ask from the aviation sector that we can reopen international travel as safely as possible, adhering to public health guidance, so I would hope that that helpline will be back up and running as soon as possible."

Ms Naughton said that she does not foresee any extra measures for those arriving from the UK.

"If you've got your digital Covid cert or a recovery cert, obviously there's no need to quarantine but we're asking passengers is to give themselves plenty of time now in advance when they're travelling," she said.

"Many of the checks are going to be on departure at the airport you're departing from, that was the key recommendation for the European Commission, in order to try and minimise the traffic through the airports, right across Europe. 

"So what we have to do is constantly monitor this to make sure that we can reopen the economy and international travel as safely as possible."

To date, over 1.1m certificates have been emailed to people and over 600,000 have been posted.