A three-year-old girl was yesterday declared the 17 millionth passenger to pass through Dublin airport in 2004, earning her a €2,500 holiday voucher. Passenger figures through the airport have more than doubled in the last 10 years.
Ciara Moss from Essex in England arrived in on a Ryanair flight from Stansted, accompanied by her mother Helen and her father Keith.
A piper from the Black Raven Pipe Band was on hand to perform as Ciara made her way from the baggage hall to the arrivals hall where her grandad, Mr Gerry Doyle from Dún Laoghaire, greeted the family.
The family were also met by Mr Richard Hilliard, director at Dublin airport, who presented Ciara with a teddy bear and a holiday voucher worth €2,500. He presented Ciara's parents with a bottle of champagne and had a bouquet of flowers for Helen.
"This is a historic milestone for us at Dublin Airport," Mr Hilliard said. "To put this in context, it means that the equivalent of more than four times the entire population of Ireland have travelled through Dublin Airport this year alone."
Dublin Airport opened in 1940 and in its first year saw just over 55,000 passengers travel through its doors. That figure almost trebled in three years while more than 162,000 passengers travelled through the airport 50 years ago.
In 1984, Dublin Airport saw 2½ million passengers pass through and in 1994, the numbers went as high as seven million.
Commenting on the huge growth of capacity, a spokesman for Dublin airport said: "We have broken a number of records at the airport this year. Thirty-four new routes were introduced and we now have 46 airlines servicing 102 destinations across the world."