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Air and Sea Travel Statistics January 2023

Passenger arrivals up 1.4% on pre-pandemic January 2020

Online ISSN: 2811-6062
CSO statistical publication, , 11am

Key Findings

  • More than 1,252,000 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes in January 2023.

  • This compares with 584,100 arrivals in January 2022, an increase of 114.4%.

  • Some 1,216,600 passengers arrived by air and 35,400 by sea in January 2023.

  • More arrivals came via Great Britain (447,000) than via any other country in January 2023.

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (27 February 2023) released Air and Sea Travel Statistics for January 2023.

Commenting on the release, Gregg Patrick, Statistician in the Tourism and Travel Division, said: “The latest Air and Sea Travel Statistics show that 1,252,000 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes in January 2023. These passengers, comprising foreign visitors arriving in Ireland and Irish overseas travellers returning home, represented a very substantial increase on January 2022, when 584,100 passengers arrived on overseas routes. The increase is even more substantial when compared with January 2021 when just 108,000 passengers arrived on these routes. Passenger arrivals are also higher than pre-pandemic January 2020, when 1,235,100 passengers arrived on overseas routes, representing an increase of 1.4%.

The recovery is seen in both modes of travel (air and sea), although the recovery in air travel is most pronounced, increasing by 115.9% in January 2023 compared with January 2022. The recovery is also spread across all major routes, with transatlantic traffic up most (126.4%) in relative terms, increasing from 40,200 in January 2022 to 91,100 in January 2023. Among the continental routes, Spanish routes remain the busiest, with 153,100 passengers arriving on these routes in January 2023, a 72.2% increase compared with January 2022.

However, in overall terms, Great Britain remained the most important departure country for overseas travel to Ireland, with 447,000 passengers arriving on air and sea routes from Great Britain in January 2023, compared to just 164,700 in January 2022."

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 is currently being extended to the other air and sea ports. 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.

Air and Sea Travel by Mode, January 2019-January 2023

Of the 1,252,000 passengers arriving in Ireland in January 2023, 97.2% (1,216,600) arrived by air and 2.8% (35,400) arrived by sea. These percentage shares are comparable to pre-pandemic January 2020 when 96.8% of passengers arrived by air and 3.2% arrived by sea.

Figure 1: Air and Sea Passenger Arrivals, January 2019 - January 2023
Table 1: Overseas arrivals and departures by year, month and mode

Air and Sea Travel by Route

In January 2023, 35.8% of passenger arrivals (448,000) came or returned to Ireland on cross-channel routes (i.e. their point of embarkation was an airport or seaport in Great Britain, the Isle of Man, or the Channel Islands). Some 52.2% of passenger arrivals (653,600) came or returned to Ireland on continental routes (embarking in a European airport or seaport other than in Great Britain, the Isle of Man, or the Channel Islands). A further 7.3% of passenger arrivals (91,100) came or returned to Ireland on transatlantic routes (embarking in the United States or Canada). Just 4.7% of passenger arrivals (59,300) came or returned to Ireland on other routes (embarking in Africa or Asia).

Figure 2: Air and Sea Passenger Arrivals by Route, January 2023
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Table 2: Overseas arrivals and departures by year, month and route

Air and Sea Travel by Country of Embarkation/Disembarkation

Apart from Great Britain (which accounted for almost all cross-channel activity in January 2023), the most important country gateways for passengers travelling to Ireland were Spain (153,100), the United States (81,700), France (80,400) and Germany (65,000). When we compare these passenger flows with January 2020, we see that passenger arrivals embarking from Spain were 28.1% higher than pre-pandemic levels and passenger arrivals embarking from France were 20.4% higher. However, passenger arrivals embarking from Germany and the United States decreased by 15.5% and 11.7% respectively when compared with January 2020.

 

Table 3: Overseas arrivals and departures by year, month and routing country