Dublin Airport announced it handled a total of 19.1 million passengers in 2012 up 2% the second consecutive year of traffic growth at Dublin as an additional 420,000 passengers used the facility driven by the growth of long-haul traffic up 16% with new services from the Middle East and North America.
A total of 63,000 passengers travelled on domestic routes down 49% on 2011 while traffic to Europe increased by 2% to 10 million passengers with Middle East and North Africa traffic increased by 84% in 2012, as almost 480,000 people travelled on these routes, North American traffic increased by 5% to 1.6 million passengers and traffic to Britain declined by 1%.
Dublin Airport Terminal 1 handled 10.3 million passengers and Terminal 2 handled almost 8.8 million passengers.
Total traffic at DAA’s three airports – Dublin, Cork and Shannon* increased by 1% last year to 22.8 million, which was also the second year of consecutive overall growth.
The Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) is paying a €1.5 million rebate in airport charges to 25 airlines that grew their business at Dublin Airport during the year. Under its Growth Incentive Scheme, a rebate is being paid to each airline based on its overall level of growth at Dublin. Airlines that grew their business at Dublin Airport last year included; Aer Lingus, Aer Lingus Regional, Air Canada, American Airlines, Etihad, Lufthansa, SAS and Turkish Airlines. British Airways and Emirates also launched significant new services from Dublin last year.
DAA Strategy Director Vincent Harrison said “We’re delighted that 25 airlines grew their business at Dublin Airport last year and we’re rewarding them for that growth with a €1.5 million rebate on our already highly competitive airport charges.
Despite the downturn, we have seen growth in overall passenger numbers for the second year in a row, and strong demand for long-haul travel into and out of Ireland.
Emirates started its new Dublin-Dubai service last January and has already introduced a larger aircraft on the route, while Etihad also grew traffic on its Dublin-Abu Dhabi service last year
While many business and leisure passengers are using these services to connect to the Far East and beyond, we have not seen any reduction in traffic to the major European hubs such as Heathrow, Paris and Amsterdam”.
The DAA expects further growth in the long-haul segment in 2013 as Etihad will add an extra 30% capacity to its Dublin-Abu Dhabi route and there will also be almost 20% more seats available on Transatlantic routes to and from Dublin this summer as Aer Lingus, American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines increase capacity with 112 direct flights per week to 11 North American destinations this summer.
Irish Aviation Research Institute © 10th January 2013 All Rights Reserved.
