Dublin Airport has just recorded 14 months of continuous year-on-year passenger growth, which has helped the airport add more than one million additional passengers over the past year. While Dublin Airport did record overall passenger growth in 2011 and in 2012, this is the first time since 2007 that the airport has had year-on-year passenger traffic growth for 12 consecutive months or more.

“This is a very significant achievement and shows a sustained period of passenger growth,” DAA director of strategy, Vincent Harrison, told The HUB during this year’s World Routes forum in Las Vegas. “Passenger numbers at Dublin Airport are also growing much faster than the EU average,” he added.

According to the latest data from ACI Europe, EU airports recorded 0.2 per cent growth in passenger numbers during the eight months to the end of August. Passenger numbers at Dublin were up by six per cent during the same period. The average growth in the first eight months of this year for Europe as a whole - which comprises EU and non-EU countries - was 2.1 per cent, which is significantly below Dublin’s January to August performance.

Dublin’s growth is coming from a strong long-haul sector with record-breaking Transatlantic passenger numbers, which are up 15 per cent year to date (see 'Record Year for Transatlantic Traffic at Dublin Airport'), a strong performance on routes to the Middle East and Africa, which are up 14 per cent so far this year, and a significant growth in transfer traffic at Dublin. “Our long-haul customers are seeing strong demand, as capacity that was added on long-haul routes last year is being filled,” said Harrison.

Transfer passengers are the fastest growing segment of the market at Dublin. “In the first eight months of this year, Dublin Airport handled 378,000 transfer passengers, which is an increase of 43 per cent on the same period in 2012 and 80 per cent higher than the first eight months of 2011,” added Harrison.