Air freight at state’s airports up 12pc in 2024

Jennifer Banim Director of the Central Statistics Office

The annual Central Statistics Office figures for the state’s airport’s showed air freight was up 12pc on 2023.

Over 279,000 flights were handled by the state’s five main airports last year, up 2pc on the previous year, with Dublin responsible for 84pc of them.

Dublin Airport recorded 34,623,260 passengers last year, surpassing the planning cap of 32m established for its second terminal .The figure differs slightly form the 34,645,335 announced by Dublin airport in January.

The total travelling trough airports was 41,023,960 for airports in the state and 50,328,020 for the island, 6.1pc ahead of 2023 and 7pc ahead of pre-pandemic.

Heathrow, Schiphol in Amsterdam, and Manchester were the most popular routes for passengers travelling to and from Dublin airport. The top route for Cork and Shannon was also Heathrow, but for Knock it was Stansted, and for Kerry airport it was Dublin.

Cork’s total of 3,068,449 differs slightly from the 3,065,207 announced by the airport, and Shannon’s 2,050,831 from the 2,104,361 announced by the airport, Knock’s 828,764 from the 834,240 announced by the airport, and Kerry’s 412,034 from the 417,409 announced by the airport.

The destination statistics show a decline in transfer traffic through Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in relation to other major hubs, with Amsterdam now clear sedan place behind Heathrow. Five English and one Scottish airport rates in the top ten from Dublin.

Damien Lenihan, Statistician in the CSO Agriculture, Transport & Tourism Division, said: “The figures show an increase in international travel during 2024 with the number of passengers using Irish airports at record level. Just less than 41.0 million people travelled through the five main airports in the country throughout the year, which was the highest number of passengers since the series began in 2013. Data shows that the number of passengers travelling to and from Ireland were up by 5% compared with 2023. Over 891,000 more passengers travelled to Ireland in 2024 when compared with 2023. In 2024, 20.5 million passengers departed from Ireland, which was almost 906,000 more than the same period in 2023

Graeme McQueen of Dublin airport shared: “As an island nation with a fast-growing population…air connectivity is always going to be vital. The CSO figures are indicative of the huge demand from airlines and passengers to fly in and out of Ireland. Everyone’s full focus needs to be on fully removing the cap and enabling faster planning.”