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Transport Bulletin December 2021

Aviation

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Aviation Data

Source: Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Knock and Kerry airports.

Air passenger data shows a substantial fall in passengers handled by Irish airports due to COVID-19 restrictions. Data on airport passengers is presented in table 4.1 and illustrated in figure 4.1. The number of passengers travelling through the main airports in October 2021 was more than five times of that of October 2020. However, the number of passengers travelling through the main airports in October 2021 was still 49.3% lower than the same month in 2019.

The total number of passengers handled by those airports in the first ten months of 2021 fell from 7,820,805 to 6,276,720 when compared with the same period in 2020.

Non-essential international travel returned on 19 July. The number of passengers travelling through Dublin airport in October 2021 rose by 15.9% compared with the previous month.

Note: Knock airport was closed from April to June 2020 and from February to May 2021.

	Dublin	Cork	Shannon	Knock	Kerry
Percentage change	-16.3	-67.3	-22.2	-18.1	-1

Table 4.1 Number of passengers handled by main airports, 2019 to 2021

Table 4.1 Number of passengers¹ handled by main airports, 2019 to 2021
	Dublin			Cork			Shannon
	2019	2020	2021	2019	2020	2021	2019	2020	2021
January	2,054,794	2,082,481	199,121	148,939	158,078	4,849	87,016	85,974	1,214
February	1,993,325	2,030,643	95,802	150,482	159,121	1,478	82,497	86,800	441
March	2,432,195	1,026,004	110,176	174,876	80,188	2,599	100,374	43,454	667
April	2,789,660	23,951	119,826	210,510	1,140	3,796	128,840	85	186
May	2,965,517	42,661	150,856	239,077	2,116	6,944	160,902	17	369
June	3,202,409	88,980	283,883	278,961	4,623	14,185	178,680	18	9,734
July	3,430,859	374,443	638,978	296,876	27,631	32,001	183,398	14,362	23,859
August	3,399,714	509,910²	1,233,219	296,799	39,951	73,735	187,029	19,871	47,540
September	3,021,796	386,058	1,330,768	238,523	22,705	28,168	166,270	11,027	53,895
October	2,865,397	253,972	1,542,850	215,482	16,714	0	138,218	7,907	71,853
November	2,240,194	166,835		171,693	6,108		104,148	1,823
December	2,280,391	281,302²		163,248	8,639		99,050	2,247
Total	32,676,251	7,267,240²		2,585,466	527,014		1,616,422	273,585
	Knock³			Kerry			Total
	2019	2020	2021	2019	2020	2021	2019	2020	2021
January	42,413	40,272	619	20,829	21,572	1,065	2,353,991	2,388,377	206,868
February	45,456	45,263	0	22,231	22,699	406	2,293,991	2,344,526	98,127
March	54,700	22,436	0	25,546	11,492	517	2,787,691	1,183,574	113,959
April	71,563	0	0	32,171	110	667	3,232,744	25,286	124,475
May	73,850	0	0	34,213	219	935	3,473,559	45,013	159,104
June	77,020	0	2,077	36,150	479	2,699	3,773,220	94,100	312,578
July	88,781	8,072	9,505	40,680	6,528	5,380	4,040,594	431,036	709,723
August	94,907	13,707	25,307	39,617	8,337	20,811	4,018,066	591,776²	1,400,612
September	76,300	5,734	34,333	35,721	5,103	19,235	3,538,610	430,627	1,466,399
October	72,299	4,661	42,943	31,790	3,188	27,229	3,323,186	286,442	1,684,875
November	55,255	1,343		25,151	1,342		2,596,441	177,451
December	52,899	1,044		25,737	1,890		2,621,325	295,122²
Total	805,443	142,532		369,836	82,959		38,053,418	8,293,330²
¹ Passenger numbers refer to commercial passengers only. Transit passengers are included and are counted twice (i.e. both as arriving and departing passengers).
² Minor revisions to 2020 data
³ Knock airport was closed from April to June 2020 and from February to May 2021 and Cork airport was closed in October 2021