Press Statement

Preasráiteas

20 April 2022

Go to release: Aviation Statistics Quarter 4 and Year 2021

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (20 April 2022) published Aviation Statistics for Quarter 4 and Year 2021.

Commenting on the release, Nele van der Wielen, Statistician, said: “The figures continue to show a significant decline in international travel during 2021 compared to pre-COVID-19 travel figures, but an increase compared with 2020. Almost 29 million (28,924,756) fewer passengers used Irish airports in 2021 compared with 2019. This represents a fall of 76%. The number of flights fell slightly in 2021 compared with 2020 but there were more than one-third (34%) fewer flights taken in 2021 when compared with 2019, from 273,558 flights in 2019 to 94,040 in 2021.

In Quarter 4 of 2021, almost 2,266,000 passengers travelled to Ireland and 2,275,000 passengers departed from Ireland, representing a fall of 47% in both arrivals and departures compared with 2019.

The amount of air freight handled by the main airports rose by 16% to 160,855 tonnes in 2021 compared with 2020 and increased by 10% compared with 2019.”

Further commenting on the release, Nele van der Wielen said: “In 2021, nine out of every ten passengers (92%) 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.”

-- ENDS --