Strong growth for Dublin-UK air traffic: Irish Aviation Authority

Irish Aviation Authority stated (14-Apr-2014) air traffic at Dublin Airport continues to perform strongly and was up 2.5% year-on-year in Mar-2014. A number of routes between Dublin and the UK have seen particularly strong growth, according to the most recent figures from EUROCONTROL. The most significant growth was seen on the following routes:

• Manchester-Dublin up 30%;
• Edinburgh-Dublin up 23%;
• Dublin-Birmingham up 20%;
• London/Stansted-Dublin up 18%;

The strong performance at the State's busiest airport continues to drive domestic terminal traffic upwards with total growth for the three State airports (Dublin, Cork and Shannon) up 1.2%. On a cumulative basis, commercial terminal traffic for the state airports for 1Q2014 was up by 4.5%. Individually, Cork and Shannon airports reported negative growth for Mar-2014 at 5% and 4.2% respectively. Air traffic between Ireland and Turkey has also seen strong growth with inbound flights up 53% and outbound services up 33%. The IAA's North Atlantic Communications flights (Europe / North America services) saw an increase of 3.1% in March 2014. There was, however, a decrease of 3.1% in Ireland's en route traffic movements (flights that pass through Irish airspace, but do not land) during the same month. On a cumulative basis, the change in North Atlantic Communications flights and en route traffic movements and for 1Q2014 was 2.2% and -7.3% respectively. Total flights in Irish airspace in Mar-2014 have marginally decreased by 1.6%. There was an average of 1,300 daily flights during Mar-2014, with the busiest day being 28-Mar-2014 with 1483 flights in Irish airspace. [more - original PR]