Dublin Traffic Soars Ahead Of Europe Average

Passenger growth at Dublin Airport continued at more than three and a half times the European average in November, according to the latest ACI Europe monthly figures.

Dublin recorded growth of 16.4% in November, significantly higher than all of the major European airports.

And it enjoyed the second highest passenger increase among airports of a comparable size – behind only Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport.

November growth across the entire European airports averaged 4.6%.

Airports within the EU saw average growth of 5.1%, while traffic at airports elsewhere in Europe grew by a disappointing of 2.1%.

ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec said passenger traffic overall remained healthy in November - although growing at a slower pace when compared to previous months.

“This slower growth is essentially due to heavy traffic losses at Russian airports, as well as to the fierce impact of the Lufthansa strikes on German airports and the toll taken by the Paris terrorist attacks on French airports.

“The combination of these events resulted in Istanbul-Atatürk airport ranking the second busiest European airport behind London-Heathrow for the first time on a monthly basis – as passenger traffic decreased by 11.3% at Frankfurt airport and by 1.3% at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport.”

He added “Many EU markets achieved double digit growth in passenger traffic – Slovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, Ireland, Lithuania, Romania, Portugal, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Latvia, Malta, Cyprus and Hungary.

“Meanwhile, Iceland continued to register stellar growth, with Keflavik airport increasing passenger numbers by 26.4%.

“However, overall growth in freight traffic remained almost flat due to significant traffic losses at Russian airports which dragged down non-EU airport freight traffic by 12.8% - whereas EU airports posted a 1.3% increase.”