Dublin Airport has today broken its previous record for the number of passengers processed in a single year, with the rest of its December traffic still to come.
More than 23.5 million passengers have now passed through Dublin Airport this year, beating the airport’s previous record for passenger traffic which was set in 2008.
“Dublin Airport is having a record year for passenger numbers due to strong growth across all major sectors of the market,” said Dublin Airport Managing Director Vincent Harrison.
“Passenger numbers are up 16% so far this year, with record numbers of people travelling to and from Dublin on European, UK, transatlantic and other international routes,” Mr Harrison added. “We have already welcomed more than 3.1 million extra passengers this year and we still have most of December to come.”
Dublin Airport’s previous record was set in 2008 during the economic boom, when the airport had 23.46 million passengers.
The growth in passenger numbers this year is due to a combination of 23 new routes, and significant additional capacity on many existing airline services. “We’ve had strong growth from our existing airline customers, and six new airlines also established new routes at Dublin during the year,” according to Mr Harrison.
Five new long-haul services were launched at Dublin Airport this year and 18 new short-haul routes also commenced operations. The new routes that have opened include Aer Lingus services to Washington, Liverpool and Nantes, Ryanair services to Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Lublin, Ethiopian Airlines services to Los Angeles and Addis Ababa, and new flights to Reykjavik, Barcelona and Paris Orly with WOW Air, Vueling and Transavia respectively.
“The new routes and extra capacity contributed to a very strong summer period, as more than 5.3 million passengers used Dublin Airport during July and August, which is our busiest time of the year,” Mr Harrison said.
The strong traffic performance has also continued into the winter season. “This winter, our airline customers will have about 1.5 million extra seats to and from Dublin Airport, which is a 13% increase in the total number of seats available. There are three new services for the winter this year and 13 routes that started in the summer have continued into the winter season for the first time.”
A total of 11 new scheduled services have already been announced for next year at Dublin Airport. There are four new scheduled transatlantic services, as Aer Lingus has new routes to Los Angeles, Newark and Hartford, Connecticut, and Air Canada rouge will have a new route to Vancouver.
In the short-haul sector, Aer Lingus will have new services to Montpellier, Murcia and Pisa, Ryanair will operate new routes to Athens and the Spanish city of Vigo, Blue Air will have a new service to Cluj in Romania and Aegean Airlines will operate a new route to Athens.
Dublin Airport will also have new long-haul charter services next year, as Falcon Holidays and Thomson will operate direct flights to Cancun in Mexico, and Montego Bay in Jamaica next summer.
Dublin Airport, which is Ireland’s key international gateway, is celebrating its 75 birthday this year. The airport has direct flights to about 170 scheduled and charter destinations.
