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Air and Sea Travel Statistics July 2022

Overseas arrivals 12% fewer than pre-pandemic

CSO statistical publication, , 11am

Key Findings

In July 2022:

  • More than 1,965,400 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes.

  • This compares with 380,700 arrivals in July 2021 (a five-fold increase).

  • Some 1,783,600 passengers arrived by air and 181,800 by sea.

  • More arrivals came via Great Britain (661,200) than via any other country.

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (30 August 2022) released Air and Sea Travel Statistics for July 2022.

Commenting on the release, Gregg Patrick, Statistician, said: “The latest Air and Sea Travel Statistics show 1,965,400 overseas passengers arrived in Ireland in July 2022. This is a very substantial increase on July 2021, when 380,700 overseas passengers arrived (and an even more substantial increase on July 2020, when just 227,300 overseas passengers arrived). However, overseas arrivals remain significantly lower (12%) than pre-pandemic July 2019, when 2,225,900 overseas passengers arrived.

The recovery is seen in both modes of travel (air and sea), although the recovery in air travel is most pronounced (with a five-fold increase compared to July 2021). The recovery is also spread across all major routes, with transatlantic traffic up most in relative terms with eight transatlantic passengers arriving in July 2022 for every one in July 2021. Among the continental routes, Spanish routes were the busiest, with 277,200 passengers arriving on these routes, a more than six-fold increase compared to July 2021.

However, in overall terms, Great Britain remained the most important departure country for overseas travellers to Ireland, with 661,200 passengers arriving on air and sea routes from Great Britain, compared to just 122,700 in July 2021."

The above text has been amended on the 30th of August 2022 to reflect the correct pre-pandemic comparison month, July 2019. 

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 remaining months of this year. 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.

Figure 1: Overseas Arrivals July 2019 - July 2022
Figure 2: Air and Sea Travel Arrivals and Departures by Route, July 2022
Table 1: Overseas arrivals and departures by year, month and mode
Table 2: Overseas arrivals and departures by year, month and route
Table 3: Overseas arrivals and departures by year, month and routing country