MORE than nine million passengers went through Dublin Airport last year, an increase of 13 per cent and a new record, Aer Rianta said last night. The state-owned airport management company said traffic growth to all areas, as well as more transit passengers, drove the increase.

Traffic on transatlantic routes rose 19 per cent, there were 15 per cent more passengers going to and from Britain, and a 9 per cent rise in travel to the Continent, Aer Rianta said.

The company also quoted record years at Shannon and Cork airports. Shannon showed an 11 per cent growth in traffic for the year, with throughput figures of 1.7 million passengers, while Cork registered over one million passengers for the first time and showed a 16 per cent increase in traffic.