Dublin airport recorded its busiest every day last weekend, with a total of 120,585 passengers travelling through the hub on Sunday 30 July.
The airport also reported passenger figures of over 3.4 million for the month of July, which it said was 13 per cent higher than the same period in 2022, and “on a par with July 2019”. The total includes 205,000 transfer and transit passengers.
The airport also said that 99.6 per cent of customers passed through security in less than 20 minutes last month, and on the arrivals side it took an average of 19 minutes for bags to be delivered from the aircraft to the baggage belt.
“Given July was the wettest month on record, it’s perhaps no surprise that thousands of passengers opted to swap soggy Ireland for sunnier climes and jumped on a flight for a last-minute summer holiday,” said Kenny Jacobs, chief executive officer of Dublin airport’s operator daa.
“The busiest days in July normally come in the middle part of the month, but this year passenger numbers continued to rise as the month went on at both Dublin and Cork airports. The summer so far has been really smooth at Dublin Airport which is down to the phenomenal efforts of the team and on behalf of our passengers, I want to thank them for their hard work.”
In other news the daa said it was “disappointed” by Fingal County Council’s decision to provide only six weeks notice for Dublin Airport to comply to reduce the number of night flights to a maximum of 65 between 2300 and 0700.
The operator said that the enforcement order “comes despite the fact that Fingal County Council has already confirmed that having a cap on the number of night flights is no longer a fit-for-purpose way of determining how many flights should operate at night time and recommended that a more appropriate noise quota should be introduced”.
“We now face an unnecessary situation whereby Fingal County Council requires its interpretation of these onerous operating conditions to be applied at Dublin Airport – and within just six weeks,” said Jacobs.
“Unreasonably, this would mean the number of flights operating on Dublin Airport’s two runways between 2300 and 0700 would be lower than before North Runway opened and when it only had one runway.
“It would be like increasing the number of seats in Croke Park to 100,000 but cutting the capacity for games to 50,000. It makes no sense, and the travelling public deserves better.”