Nearly 3 million passengers used Dublin and Cork Airports during the hugely busy month of March – which took in the St Patrick’s Day holiday period and the start of the Easter school holidays.
New figures from daa – which operates both airports – shows a total of 2.9 million passengers passing through the two airports last month. That boiled down to a 9% year-on-year passenger increase at Dublin and 25% like-for-like growth at Cork for the month of March.
Commenting on the March passenger traffic statistics, daa CEO, Kenny Jacobs said: “March was a really busy month at both Dublin and Cork Airports. It was one of the wettest months on record and as a result, many opted to escape the weather here to travel to warmer, sunnier destinations. At Dublin Airport, last month’s numbers were boosted by some high-profile sporting events that took place in the Aviva, including the Six Nations clash against Scotland and the soccer friendlies against Switzerland and Belgium. Plenty of fans and punters also flew out to the Ireland v England rugby game in Twickenham and the Cheltenham Racing Festival.”
“Cork Airport had another fantastic month, with passenger numbers up 25% on March last year. A very extensive summer schedule has just started at Cork Airport, with a new Ryanair service to Brussels starting last weekend. Other new Ryanair services to Rhodes and Zadar will take off in June and Air France will add additional capacity on their key hub connections to Paris Charles de Gaulle for July and August.”
As well as the annual Six Nations Rugby passenger boost, Easter was earlier this year and that resulted in thousands heading off on breaks and short holidays. March also saw the start of new transatlantic services from Dublin to New York (JFK) and Boston with JetBlue.
St Patrick’s Day and the start of the Easter school holidays played a role in the strong passenger traffic last month.
