Commercial air traffic at Cork Airport was up 11.3% in April over the same month in the previous year according to the latest figures from the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA).
 
Dublin and Shannon airports also registered a rise in passenger numbers in April with Dublin up 9.4% and Shannon up 2.3%.
 
Cork Airport registered an average of 55 daily movements last month with Dublin at 568 and Shannon at 50 movements respectively.
 
According to the IAA, there was an increase of 1% in Ireland’s overflight traffic movements (flights that pass through Irish-controlled airspace but do not land) this month, with 27,274 flights. The IAA’s North Atlantic Communications flights (Europe / North America flights) saw an increase of 5.9% and 38,009 flights in April.
 
In total, the Irish Aviation Authority managed 89,379 movements in April 2016, an increase of 5.1% on the previous year.
 
Welcoming the growth at Cork and Shannon airports, Eamonn Brennan, IAA Chief Executive, “The choice for Irish consumers will be really expanded when Norwegian Air International (NAI) receives its approval to operate transatlantic services.
 
The opposition to the NAI permit is based on restricting consumer choice and restricting competition and is not on the grounds of safety or labour. Irish safety standards are amongst the highest in the world and only EU and US crews will be used and they will be subject to EU law.”