COVID-19 restrictions had a dramatic effect on airport passenger numbers in Quarter 3
The number of flights to and from Irish airports in Q3 fell by more than 54,500 compared to the same period in 2019
More than 10 million fewer passengers used Irish airports in Q3 2020 compared to Q3 2019
Passenger numbers for the first nine months of 2020 fell by 74.5% compared to the first nine months of 2019
The number of passengers arriving to or departing from Ireland in September 2020 fell by 87.8% compared to September 2019
Almost 730,000 passengers travelled to Ireland and 724,000 passengers departed from Ireland in Q3 2020
Air freight handled by Irish airports in Q3 fell by 15.4% compared to Q3 2019
Go to release: Aviation Statistics Quarter 3 2020
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (15 December 2020) published Aviation Statistics for Quarter 3 2020. Passenger numbers are received for the five main airports: Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Knock and Kerry.
Commenting on the release, Olive Loughnane, Statistician, said: ’The figures show a significant decline in international travel during Q3 2020. In particular, data for July 2020 shows a fall of 89.3% in passengers handled by Irish airports compared to July 2019.
In Quarter 3 of 2020, almost 730,000 passengers travelled to Ireland and 724,000 passengers departed from Ireland. These numbers represent a fall of 87.5% (5.8 million) and 87.4% (5.8 million) respectively, when compared to the same period in 2019.
The amount of air freight handled by the main airports also fell by 15.4% to 31,860 tonnes in the third quarter of 2020 when compared with the same period in 2019. However, freight in the first nine months of 2020 is up by 3.7% to 107,888 tonnes compared with the first nine months of 2019.’
Today’s figures also show a breakdown by route. In Q3 2020, nine out of every ten passengers (95.1%) on international flights were travelling to or from Europe. Within Europe, the United Kingdom and Spain were the most popular routes.
Outside of Europe the most popular routes were to or from the United States of America.