New CSO figures reveal that passenger numbers at Shannon Airport dropped by nearly 20% in the first three months of this year.
The figures show that the Airport had made a strong start to 2019, before aviation globally was thrown off course by COVID-19.
Just over 216,000 passengers passed through Shannon in the first three months of this year.
That’s down from nearly 270,000 on the first quarter in 2019, representing a 19.9% drop.
This is largely down to COVID-19.
In isolation, January and February’s figures were roughly in line with the same time last year.
But in March, as the coronavirus pandemic took hold, the numbers using Shannon Airport fell by 56.7% when compared with 2019.
Over the three months, passenger numbers at Dublin airport fell by 20.7%, though Cork fared better with its numbers falling by 16.2%
Other figures from the Irish Aviation Authority show that last month saw an unsurprising 86.9% fall in the number of flights at Shannon, but its traffic levels were still higher than Cork Airport.
