Passenger traffic up 8% at Dublin Airport
More than 18.4 million passengers travelled through Dublin Airport last year, an 8% increase over 2004. A total of 1.3 million extra passengers travelled through the airport in 2005, according to figures released today.
The main contributors to the growth in traffic were the airport's European and north Atlantic routes.
European traffic grew by 18% with more than 8.1 million passengers travelling in 2005. This growth was delivered through a combination of new European routes and larger aircraft operating on existing services.
Significant growth was also achieved on North American routes in 2005 with passenger numbers increasing by 14%.
In all, more than 1.2 million passengers travelled on the many transatlantic services to and from Dublin Airport.
Traffic to and from the UK declined by 1% with just over 8.2 million passengers travelling in 2005.
Dublin Airport today attributed the fall to a combination of a reduction in capacity at Dublin Airport and a fall-off in connecting traffic as a result of a growing direct network to the UK from other Irish airports. Domestic traffic fell by 5% to 650,000 passengers.
Dublin Airport has 50 scheduled airlines operating to 112 destinations internationally. More than 30 new services are planned in the first quarter of 2006, half of which will represent new routes for the airport.
