British destinations continue to dominate traffic at Shannon Airport, accounting for over a third of passengers passing through last year.
Figures released by the CSO show that of the 1.6 million travelling through the Midwest facility in 2018, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted alone accounted for almost 600,000.
Passenger numbers overall at Shannon are at a eight-year high.
A total of 1,667,661 passengers were handled in Shannon Airport across 2018.
That’s a welcome increase of almost 5% on the 2017 figure and is also the best year at Shannon since 2010.
But the data also reveals that Shannon is very reliant on the UK and in particular on London.
Of all passengers to travel through last year, some 596,000 – or 35.5% – were travelling to or from Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted Airports.
On top of that, a further 85,000 were Manchester bound, at a time when management at Shannon is working to secure a strong EU hub post-Brexit.
Along with the London airports, New York JFK and Boston Logan Airport round off the top five, with 118,000 and 94,000 passengers last year respectively.
