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Air and Sea Travel Statistics November 2022

Passenger arrivals return to pre-pandemic levels

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

Key Findings

  • More than 1,340,400 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes in November 2022.

  • This compares with 785,800 arrivals in November 2021, an increase of 70.6%.

  • Some 1,292,800 passengers arrived by air and 47,600 by sea in November 2022.

  • More arrivals came via Great Britain (521,900) than via any other country in November 2022.

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (22 December 2022) released Air and Sea Travel Statistics for November 2022.

Commenting on the release, Gregg Patrick, Statistician in the Tourism and Travel Division, said: “The latest Air and Sea Travel Statistics show that 1,340,400 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes in November 2022. These passengers, comprising foreign visitors arriving in Ireland and Irish overseas travellers returning home, represent a very substantial increase on November 2021, when 785,800 passengers arrived on overseas routes. The increase is even more substantial when compared with November 2020 when just 103,900 passengers arrived on these routes. Passenger arrivals have now effectively returned to pre-pandemic levels for the first time since the COVID-19 crisis, being just 0.8% lower than November 2019, when 1,351,400 passengers arrived on overseas routes.

The recovery is seen in both modes of travel (air and sea), although the recovery in air travel is most pronounced, increasing by 71.3% in November 2022 compared with November 2021. The recovery is also spread across all major routes, with transatlantic traffic up most. In relative terms, there were three passengers arriving on transatlantic routes in November 2022 for every one passenger in November 2021. Among the continental routes, Spanish routes remain the busiest, with 160,300 passengers arriving on these routes, a 69.4% increase compared with November 2021.

However, in overall terms, Great Britain remained the most important departure country for overseas travel to Ireland, with 521,900 passengers arriving on air and sea routes from Great Britain, compared to just 313,800 in November 2021."

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.

Air and Sea Travel by Mode, November 2019-November 2022

Of the 1,340,400 passengers arriving in Ireland in November 2022, 96.4% (1,292,800) arrived by air and 3.6% (47,600) arrived by sea. This percentage share of air and sea travel is comparable to pre-pandemic November 2019 (when 96.6% of passengers arrived by air and 3.4% arrived by sea).

Figure 1: Air and Sea Passenger Arrivals, November 2019 - November 2022
Table 1: Overseas arrivals and departures by year, month and mode

Air and Sea Travel by Route

In November 2022, over one-third (39.0%) of passenger arrivals (523,000) 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). Just under half (48.0%) of passenger arrivals (643,400) 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). Just under one-tenth (9.1%) of passenger arrivals (122,500) came or returned to Ireland on transatlantic routes (embarking in the United States or Canada). Approximately four in every one hundred (3.8%) of passenger arrivals (51,600) came or returned to Ireland on other routes (embarking in Africa or Asia).

Figure 2: Air and Sea Passenger Arrivals by Route, November 2022
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 November 2022), the most important country gateways for passengers travelling to Ireland were Spain (160,300), the United States (112,600), France (72,000) and Germany (69,400). When we compare these passenger flows with November 2019, we see that passenger arrivals embarking from Spain were 25.6% higher than pre-pandemic levels and arrivals embarking from France increased by 12.9%. However, passenger arrivals embarking from the United States and Germany decreased by 9.7% and 16.6% respectively when compared with November 2019.

 

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

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