While nearly 6.9 million more passengers passed through Ireland's airports in the third quarter (Q3) of 2022 compared with 2021, the traffic remained 10% lower than during Q3 2019.
In Q3 2022, 10.4 million passengers passed through the five main Irish airports, according to the Central Statistics Office in Dublin, almost three times the number recorded in the same period in 2021.
"In the first nine months of 2022, 24.3 million passengers passed through Irish airports, which was 19.7 million more passengers when compared with the same period in 2021 but 5.2 million fewer than the same period in 2019," said Dr Nele van der Wielen, statistician in the agriculture, transport & tourism division of the CSO, the Irish government's statistics repository.
The data showed the number of flights to and from the airports in Q3 2022 up by more than 36,000 when compared with the same period in 2021 but remaining 13% below the same period in 2019.
Slightly more than 68,700 flights were handled by the airports, with Dublin handling 84% of flights. Cork handled 7%, with the rest split between Kerry, Knock and Shannon, the other airports tracked by the CSO.