Summer came early to Cork and Dublin airports with record-breaking numbers travelling in May

Dublin Airport’s busiest ever May with passenger numbers up 4.5%.

Dublin sets another new record with three 120k passenger days in May.

Cork Airport also marks busiest ever May with passenger number up 17%.

Summer came early to Cork and Dublin airports in May with strong passenger numbers at both airports surpassing previous records.

Cork Airport welcomed more than 330,000 passengers in May, 17% more than the same month last year which makes this May Cork Airport’s busiest ever. Already Ireland’s fastest growing airport, Cork is poised for further growth following the announcement last month of an ambitious €200 million capital investment plan. This will future-proof the airport’s infrastructure for growth and expansion, placing the key transport facility on a strong growth trajectory for the next decade and beyond.

Dublin Airport welcomed more than 3,257,700 passengers in May, 4.2% more than last year. On 27 days there were more than 100,000 passengers travelling through, including three days with more than 120,000 passengers – a first for any May in the airport’s 85-year history. The previous highest ever number of passengers in the month of May was 115,000 on May 23, 2024.

The strong May performance reflects the huge demand that exists to travel through Ireland’s national hub airport and onwards to other destinations throughout the island, as well as people connecting from Ireland to destinations across the world. Due to the High Court decision that the Irish Aviation Authority cannot take the passenger planning cap into account when allocating slots to airlines, numbers of flights have surged in the summer period. However, this is a temporary relief pending the outcome of the legal process currently before the European Court of Justice and the cap remains in place until a solution is found.

daa continues to do all it can to remove the passenger cap through the planning system and welcomes the comments by Minister of Transport Darragh O’Brien at Dublin Chamber of Commerce last month that he expects to bring forward legislative proposals to resolve the issue in the coming months, while respecting the independence of the planning process.

Cork Airport commentary

Commenting, daa CEO Kenny Jacobs said: “It was another month of double-digit growth at Cork Airport with passenger numbers up 17% on May 2024, making this May Cork’s busiest ever. The May Bank Holiday weekend ushered in a brilliant start to the month, with passenger numbers on that weekend up 20% on the same weekend in 2024. We’re also celebrating new routes including the start last Saturday of SunExpress’ route to Izmir in Türkiye. SunExpress is Cork’s ninth and newest airline and it’s great to have a direct service to Türkiye on the route map.

“With the peak holiday season now in full flow, the whole team at Cork Airport are well prepared for a very busy summer – quite possibly the busiest summer ever. It’s great to see such healthy numbers on some of our inbound services from the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Italy as tourists fly to Cork – the gateway to the South of Ireland.

“We’re also looking to Cork Airport’s future and were delighted to welcome the Taoiseach to the airport in May to mark the announcement of our €200 million investment plan. This supports Cork Airport to grow beyond five million passengers a year and will further boost tourism, industry and foreign direct investment throughout the South of Ireland in the coming years.”

Dublin Airport commentary 

“Summer has come early to Dublin Airport and this was comfortably our busiest ever May with three record-breaking 120,000+ passenger days,” said daa CEO Kenny Jacobs. “It’s all hands-on-deck across the airport to make sure our passengers have a smooth and enjoyable time at the airport and we’re working hard to ensure standards are even higher than they were last summer when our passenger satisfaction scores reached an all-time high. We’ve listened closely to what areas passengers want us to focus on and we are using that feedback to introduce a whole host of improvements that aim to remove pinch points for those both arriving and departing from our terminals. 

 “May numbers were boosted by the launch of great new routes, including WestJet’s non-stop service between Dublin Airport and St John’s in Newfoundland and also the recent launch of direct Aer Lingus services to Nashville and Indianapolis, which are already proving to be a hit with passengers. Of course, we would be adding even more high-demand new routes if it wasn’t for the uncertainty of the passenger cap, which is still making airlines cautious about bringing increased frequencies and new direct routes to locations like India, Brazil and Singapore. That will remain the case until the cap is fully removed.

“As well as investing in the future of Dublin Airport through our planning applications, we continue to invest in our local community. We’ve had a really positive reaction already to the announcement in May of our Elevate ’25 initiative, a €2 million transformational school support programme for communities in North Dublin and East Meath. We also gifted an eight-hectare wildlife compensatory habitat supporting ecology and biodiversity to Fingal County Council, and received the good news that our plans to build improved viewing facilities for the public to watch planes take off and land on the airport’s runways had been approved. We’re heartened that these and all our local engagement efforts are reflected in strong positive sentiment in the community. Research we commissioned from independent polling company Red C found that 86% of Fingal residents support further development of Dublin Airport to allow it to grow, while 84% agree that having the airport in their community fuels economic development”.