Dublin airport handled 3,544,974 passengers in June, up 5.8pc on 2024 and 10.7pc since pre pandemic.
Busiest day was 129,268 on June 29, the busiest day in the history of the airport.
Six months figures are 2.7pc ahead of the first six months in June 2024.
WHERE WE ARE AT: Dublin airport passenger cap
Kenny Jacobs shared: “Any other airport in Europe would be delighted to break previous passenger records, knowing the huge economic contribution that comes from welcoming 3.54m visitors to our shores. But for Dublin it’s bittersweet: the outdated cap remains a millstone weighing down every airline considering keeping or starting new routes, which has ripple effects for any business investing in Ireland as well as our homegrown industries, particularly tourism.
“This week we heard the bad news that TUI will no longer base two aircraft in Dublin Airport from summer 2026. While we look forward to supporting their new partner model, TUI’s decision is a reminder about how easily airlines can decide to relocate aircraft and routes away from Ireland. The artificial cap on numbers at Dublin Airport’s terminals is an own goal that needs to be removed.
“There is one inescapable fact here: we are an island. Connectivity is not a nice to have, it’s a prerequisite for our prosperity, critical to our diaspora, and intrinsic to our international reputation. To achieve the local planning authority’s order to reduce passenger numbers to a total of 32 million, we’d have to turn away four million passengers this year – and would be acting illegally in doing so.
“We’d also be hanging an ‘Ireland closed for business sign’, which would have severe implications for the economy. Industry research shows that every additional one million passengers results in 750 new aviation jobs. The opposite is also true – four million fewer passengers means 3,000 fewer aviation jobs, never mind the knock-on impacts for tourism and businesses across the island.
“The government has confirmed it supports a lifting of the cap and ‘will do whatever we can to achieve this’. We encourage the government to share the solutions under consideration and the timeline to get this done.
“In the meantime, Dublin Airport will continue to do what it does best, welcoming hundreds of thousands of passengers every day to Ireland’s gateway to the world. My thanks to all the hardworking employees who make this a smooth and enjoyable journey for all our passengers.”
