ROUTES EUROPE: Continued Strong Passenger Growth At Dublin Airport

Passenger traffic at Dublin Airport is continuing to grow faster than the European average, building on its strong performance during 2013. Passenger numbers at Dublin are outpacing the total European average and are significantly ahead of the average for airports within the European Union. Passenger numbers at Dublin, which welcomed 20.2 million people last year, were up ten per cent in January and eight per cent in February.

Data from ACI Europe confirms that Dublin Airport is outperforming the market, as it shows that Europe’s airports had overall traffic growth of 6.3 per cent in January and 5.3 per cent in February. Traffic at airports within the European Union increased by 4.6 per cent in January and by 4.1 per cent in February.

“The latest data shows that Dublin Airport’s traffic is continuing to grow significantly faster than the European average,” Jon Woolf, senior vice president of Aviation Business Development, Dublin Airport. “Given the additional capacity that has already been confirmed for Dublin’s long-haul and short-haul networks for 2014 we would be very hopeful that this trend will continue for the rest of this year.”

Last year, Dublin Airport was the second fastest growing airport in the European Union among its core peer group last year, according to ACI Europe. Overall passenger growth at EU airports averaged one per cent last year, whereas passenger numbers at Dublin Airport increased by almost six per cent to 20.2 million in 2013. Dublin was the second-fastest growing EU airport within Group 2 airports (which have 10-25 million passengers per year) behind Berlin Tegel airport, which saw passenger growth of sven per cent in 2013.

Growth at all European airports, which also includes non-EU states such as Russia, Turkey, and Iceland, was three per cent last year. “Passenger numbers at Dublin increased more than five times faster than the EU average last year, as we added more customers than the average EU or European airport in every month of 2013,” added Woolf.

Richard Maslen

Richard Maslen has travelled across the globe to report on developments in the aviation sector as airlines and airports have continued to evolve and…