Fewer than 8.5m people passed through Dublin Airport last year

Fewer than 8.5 million people passed through Ireland’s biggest airport last year as Government bans continued to hit air travel, the latest figures show.

Dublin Airport said on Wednesday that passenger numbers last year reached 8.46 million.

The figure was 14 per cent up on 2020, the first year of the pandemic, but was just one-quarter of the record 32.9 million who travelled through it in 2019.

Two out of three, or 5.6 million, of those who passed through the airport did so in the four months from the beginning of August to end of November.

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The Government outlawed “non-essential” travel early last year, while it imposed tough restrictions that included enforced hotel quarantines on incoming passengers.

The State partially reopened on July 19th, when it adopted the EU digital Covid certificate several weeks after other member countries. Flight and passenger numbers increased during the succeeding months.

Overall, 8.3 million passengers either started or ended their trip at Dublin, while 155,000 used the airport to transfer between flights.

The number of people flying long haul tumbled 83 per cent on 2019 to almost one million, said the airport. This was down 1 per cent on 2020.

North America accounts for much of this business at the airport. But this market alone improved 10 per cent on 2020.

Passengers on short-haul trips were down 73 per cent on 2019 at 7.5 million. This was a 17 per cent improvement on 2020.

The airport's figures show that 5.3 million people travelled between it and continental Europe last year, up one-third on 2020 but 69 per cent below 2019.

This is in line with European figures showing that popular holiday destinations such as Spain accounted for much of air traffic from here last year as Irish people fled to the sun.

While the coronavirus Omicron strain stalled air travel's recovery in December, hopes of a rebound in 2022 remain.Aer Lingus and Ryanair have signalled large scale restoration of services this year.

Government last week ditched a demand that incoming vaccinated passengers also show negative tests, sparking hopes that its stance on travel has changed.