CENTRAL Statistics Office figures show that Shannon had 12,648 flights in all last year, while more than 41% of the airport’s passengers were on their way to or coming from London.
Shannon had 1,308,242 passengers in 2013, while this figure does not include the numbers that transited through Shannon, such as US military troops. The figure was up by around three per cent on 2012.
While Dublin airports 20.1 million passengers dwarfed the level of traffic at all other Irish airports, Shannon was also a long way below Cork’s 2.25 million. However it was far higher than Knock, which had 665,558 passengers.
The most popular route was Shannon-Heathrow, on which 258,250 people travelled. Heathrow is the only European hub to which Shannon has connectivity and many of those travelling on the route would be going to or coming from other parts of the world.
London Stansted was the second most popular route, with 183,481 people travelling on it, while 104,736 travelling on the Shannon-London Gatwick service.
In total 546,467 travelled between Shannon and these three London airports, equating to 41% of all the passengers.
Shannon is one of just two airports in the Republic of Ireland offering flights to the US and Newark, which is just outside New York, was the most popular route. In 2013, 107,734 travelled Shannon-Newark, while another 102,684 travelled Shannon-New York JFK.
Also on the transatlantic side, Boston was the sixth most popular Shannon route, with 72,153 travelling on it.
Lanzarote (44,068) and Palma De Mallorca (34,323) were the most popular sun routes.
The vast majority of Shannon’s traffic was international, with just 6,495 out of 1,301,747 being domestic services.
Shannon had just over 5% of the total number of passengers at all Irish airports in the year.
July and August were the airport’s busiest months, with over 166,000 in each one. The first two months of the year were the quietest, with 59,347 across the 31 days of January and 55,971 in 28 days of February.
In terms of air freight, Shannon handled just under 14,000 tonnes in 2013, compared to 113,482 at Dublin, while the figure for Cork was just 651.
Meanwhile, new figures from the Irish Aviation Authority show that this summer has been a busy one at Shannon.
In June of last year Shannon saw its first year on year increase for years, but this was built on in June 2014, with the number of commercial movements up 24% on the same month last year.
July was also a good month, with the IAA figures showing the number of commercial movements was up by 18.3% on July of last year.
Interestingly, Shannon has had more commercial movements than Cork in each of the last four months.
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.