Airport holiday traffic tumbles 10m amid coronavirus restrictions

Covid-19 restrictions wiped more than 10 million off the number of passengers travelling through the Republic’s airports during the peak holiday season, official figures show.

Central Statistics Office (CSO) numbers show that 5.8 million fewer passengers arrived to the State’s airports, while 5.8 million fewer passengers departed, in the three months ended September 30th, than during the same period last year.

Just 730,000 people travelled to the Republic during the period, a fall of 87.5 per cent, according to the office, while 724,000 passengers left, a decline of 87.4 per cent.

Statistics show that 1.4 million people passed through the Republic’s airports over the three-month period, normally their busiest time of the year, against 11.6 million during the 2019 summer peak.

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Twenty-two million fewer people travelled through the five airports over the first nine months of the year than in the same period in 2019.

By the end of September, the Republic’s five commercial airports had handled 7.5 million people, compared with 29.5 million in the first nine months of last year.

Over the same quarter in 2019, 11.6 million travelled to and from the airports, the CSO’s statement shows.

Oliver Loughnane, statistician, described the decline in international travel as significant.

“In particular, data for July 2020 shows a fall of 89.3 per cent in passengers handled by Irish airports compared to July 2019,” he said.

Freight falls

The figures for Cork, Dublin, Kerry, Knock and Shannon airports show that freight fell 15.4 per cent to 31,860 tonnes during the three-month period when compared with the same quarter in 2019.

However, freight for the first nine months of the year rose 3.7 per cent to 107,888 tonnes, according to the CSO.

More than 19 out of every 20 passengers - 95.1 per cent - on international routes were travelling to Europe, where Britain and Spain were the most popular routes, the figures show. Outside Europe, most people travelled to or from the US.

The CSO blames the slump in passengers on travel restrictions imposed to combat Covid-19 from March.

Of the three State-owned airports, Dublin handled 1.27 million in the third quarter, a decline of 87 per cent on the 9.85 million people who travelled through there over the comparable three months in 2019.

Cork Airport’s figures tumbled 89 per cent to 90,300 from 832,200, while Shannon’s fell almost 92 per cent to 45,260 from 536,700.

At the two regional airports, Knock was down 89 per cent at 27,500 while Kerry slid 83 per cent to 20,000.

Over the first nine months of this year, Dublin Airport’s passenger numbers collapsed by 74 per cent to 6.56 million from 25.3 million over the same period in 2019.

Cork fell 76 per cent to 495,550 from two million, while Shannon retreated 79.5 per cent to 261,600 from 1.275 million.

The number of flights in and out of the airports fell 69 per cent in the three months ended September 30th to 24,175 from 78,800 in the third quarter of 2019.

Both Cork and Dublin airports expect Christmas traffic to fall by close to 90 per cent this year.

Meanwhile, State company DAA confirmed days ago that passenger numbers for the first 11 months of 2020 were down 23.5 million at 7.1 million.