- Flights up by 7.4% (107,895) nationally for August
- Dublin up 9.6% (to 19,872)
- Shannon up by 6.1% (to 1,834)
- Cork up by 25% (to 2,060)
The Irish Aviation Authority has released figures on air traffic for August 2016. Air traffic has increased in all areas, and in some areas is higher than 2008 (the previous peak traffic). Flights to and from Europe and the US increased by 4.9% to 46,050.
Dublin averages 641 daily movements, Cork averages 66 daily movements, and Shannon averages 59 daily movements. For more information on these statistics go here.
Eamonn Brennan, chief executive of the IAA: “We are delighted with these figures. We continue to see strong growth on transatlantic routes handled safely by our air traffic controllers. All the State airports performed very well with Cork and Shannon reporting great results. Dublin, which accounts for 84% of the total State airport traffic, grew 9.6% in August and has grown by nearly 10% in total so far this year, with over 140,000 movements. This is a very strong indicator of our economic recovery — 2016 looks set to be a record year for air traffic across Ireland.”
Niall MacCarthy: “We are delighted with today’s national aviation statistics which show that Cork Airport is the fastest growing airport in Ireland in terms of number of commercial aircraft movements in August 2016, showing 24% growth in the month.
“These results are on the back of our new routes in 2016 to Dusseldorf, Madrid, Leeds, Southampton, La Rochelle and Nantes and increased frequencies on a number of other routes.
“We know that hoteliers, publicans, restauranteurs and other businesses throughout the region are noticing the additional British, German, Spanish and French visitors spending locally in what was a good season. We work very closely with Tourism Ireland and co-fund a number of collaborative marketing campaigns in these markets and that is an important part of our strategy to grow inbound visitor numbers. That strategy is yielding great results. Separately, we were pleased with last week’s Ryanair announcement flagging growth in Cork next year when they intend to carry 860,000 passengers next year on 17 Ryanair routes. We are working with other airlines now on their 2017 summer schedules and plan to continue the growth momentum in Cork in 2017″
