Just over 3.4 million passengers travelled through Dublin Airport last month, representing a 12 per cent increase on the same month last year. New figures published by Daa on Wednesday showed passenger numbers in the eight months to August totalled 22 million, with almost half of those, or 10.1 million, travelling during the busy summer months of June, July and August.
About 12 per cent more passengers have passed through Dublin Airport so far this year than during the first eight months of last year. Dublin Airport recorded its second busiest ever day in August with just shy of 119,000 passengers travelling through on Sunday, August 13th.
London Heathrow and London Gatwick were the first and second most popular destinations for people travelling through Dublin this summer respectively. This was followed by Amsterdam Schipol, Malaga, Faro and London Stansted.
Meanwhile, 308,000 passengers flew to and from Cork Airport during the month of August, representing a 14 per cent increase on August 2022, making it the busiest August for passenger traffic since 2008. Tuesday, August 8th was the busiest day of August at Cork Airport and was also the busiest day of the year so far with almost 13,000 passengers flying that day.
Kenny Jacobs, chief executive of Daa, said August was “another busy month for travel at as families continued to flock overseas in their droves to escape the miserable weather in Ireland”.
“At Dublin Airport, destinations such as Malaga, Faro and Barcelona were popular as travellers looked to swap the wind and rain for sunshine and the beach, while the restart of the UK football season in the latter half of the month boosted traffic,” he said.
“We also catered for strong demand too from the business community, which boosted routes to the London airports and also transatlantic services.”
Mr Jacobs said Dublin Airport surpassed its targets in terms of the number of people getting through security on time.
Some 97 out of every 100 passengers got through security screening in under 20 minutes. Mr Jacobs said this was “even better than the 90 per cent target we set for ourselves”.
“More than two thirds of passengers [71 per cent] have got through security in less than 10 minutes, with 90 per cent through in under 15 minutes.”
Mr Jacobs said while the return to school marks the end of peak summer travel season, September is “set to remain busy as older families and younger couples set off to enjoy some Autumn sunshine”.
