The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released the Air and Sea Travel Statistics
Overseas arrivals 12% fewer than pre-pandemic
Commenting on the release, Gregg Patrick, Statistician, said: “The latest Air and Sea Travel Statistics show 1,703,200 overseas passengers arrived in Ireland in June 2022. This shows a dramatic recovery compared to June 2021, when 160,000 overseas passengers arrived (and an even more dramatic recovery compared to June 2020, when just 57,100 overseas passengers arrived). However, overseas arrivals remain significantly lower (12%) than pre-pandemic June 2019, when 1,941,100 overseas passengers arrived.
The recovery is seen in both modes of travel (air and sea), although the recovery in air travel is most dramatic (with a twelve-fold increase compared to June 2021). The recovery is also spread across all major routes, with transatlantic traffic up most in relative terms with 19 transatlantic passengers arriving in June 2022 for every one in June 2021. Among the continental routes, Spanish routes were the busiest, with 250,800 passengers arriving on these routes, a more than seventeen-fold increase compared to June 2021.
However, in overall terms, Great Britain remained the most important departure country for overseas travellers to Ireland, with 530,600 passengers arriving on air and sea routes from Great Britain, compared to just 57,700 in June 2021.”
The collection of Tourism Statistics at air and sea ports was suspended in March 2020, to protect CSO enumerators and the travelling public from COVID-19. As a result, the details of travel to Ireland classified by country of residence, which were previously presented in the monthly Overseas Travel release, are not currently available. To help fill the data gap, the CSO is publishing this Air and Sea Travel Statistics release which reports on the numbers of overseas travellers arriving and departing Ireland classified by travel route. The information is compiled primarily from statistics provided by the DAA (Cork and Dublin airports), together with data from other airports and sea ferry operators. In March 2022 the CSO resumed survey operations at Dublin Airport on a test basis, using a new data capture methodology. This testing will extend to the other air and sea ports over the summer period. Until these trials are complete and survey operations are fully scaled, the CSO will continue publishing these Air and Sea Travel Statistics to provide high level visibility on overseas passenger flows.
Read the full CSO press statement here.
