daa reveals surge in Guinness and Tayto consumption at Dublin Airport

Passengers at Dublin Airport devoured an Irish breakfast every 50 seconds on average during 2025, according to new end-of-year figures released today by airport operator daa.

Washing them down wasn’t a problem, with daa’s stats showing that the airport’s bars sold more than 1.2 million pints of Guinness. The kettles in the airport’s cafes were kept busy too, with passengers devouring almost 3 million cups of tea and coffee during the year. The top-selling crisp sold in the airport this year was Ireland’s old favourite – Tayto, with more than 550,000 packets sold.

daa has released the statistics at the end of what has been a record year for passenger numbers at Ireland’s main airport. Final passenger numbers for 2025 will be published by daa in January. The year is likely to have seen more than 35 million passengers having passed through Dublin Airport on around 240,000 flights.

Passengers checked in a total of 9 million suitcases, weighing more than 127,000 tones – the equivalent of 21,000 male African elephants.

The most popular passenger names in the year were John and Mary with enough Johns and Marys travelling to fill 1,096 and 603 Boeing 737 planes respectively.

According to Graeme McQueen, Head of Media Relations at daa: “2025 has been a record year at Dublin Airport and we’re delighted to see our passenger satisfaction ratings at an all-time high, with the team working tirelessly to send passengers on their way with smiles on their faces. The consistent uptick in passenger happiness levels over the past three years follows the continuous rollout of improvements in the terminals, all based on feedback from passengers.

“This year has seen the introduction of new lounges, the extension of our Drop & Go parking product to Terminal 1 and the rollout of many new food and drink outlets in both terminals, including the San Marco Italian restaurant and Pret A Manger outlet in Terminal 1, and the new Ryan’s Irish bar in Terminal 2. This year also saw us complete the multi-million euro rollout of new cutting edge C3 scanners in both terminals, which enabled us to remove the old 100ml liquid limit once and for all.

“The great news for passengers is that we’ve even more improvements coming soon in both terminals to make their experience even better in 2026, including an exciting revamp of the duty free area in Terminal 1, a new lounge in Terminal 1 that’s twice the size of the old lounge and a revamped 51st and Green lounge in Terminal 2. We’re also hopeful of being able to soon announce plans for a new smoking area in Terminal – which has been a constant ask from passengers in recent years,” added McQueen.

Chocolate and Whiskey Top Sales Charts
More than 43 tonnes of Toblerone were sold at Dublin Airport in 2025 – roughly the same as a full-size humpback whale. Spirit sales were strong in duty free with a total of 409,000 litres of Irish whiskey sold and 133,000 litres of vodka.

A busy year for Airport Police
Dublin Airport Police were very busy in the year, responding to a total of 15,500 incidents at the airport.

One of the most common – and important – pieces of work carried out by the Airport Police team was responding to medical emergencies. In total, the team responded to 3,158 medical incidents.

Officers were also busy keeping the airport’s busy and crucial entrance points clear of traffic, with a total of 1,931 fixed penalty notices handed out to drivers who dwelled too long at drop-off points on the departure roads outside the two terminals.

A clampdown on illegal driver behaviour in the airport’s car parks saw 351 fixed penalty notices handed out for tailgating out of exits, while 197 vehicles were towed out of car parks due to rogue parking activity.

Lost & Found
The most commonly lost items in the airport in 2025 were:

1. Bags/luggage

2. Sunglasses

3.Mobile phones

4. Sets of keys

5.Laptops