In August 2021, 821,700 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes (up 116% on July 2021), new CSO figures show.

In the same month, 781,000 passengers departed from Ireland on overseas routes (up 82% on the previous month)

Overseas travel was considerably higher than in August 2020, when 362,600 passengers arrived, and 328,200 passengers departed

Overseas travel remains dramatically lower than pre-pandemic August 2019, when 2,256,500 passengers arrived, and 2,191,900 passengers departed

The August 2021 statistics show that continental routes contributed most to the passenger traffic.

Passengers

Some 508,100 passengers arrived on continental routes and 452,800 passengers departed on continental routes. By way of contrast, 247,700 passengers arrived on cross-channel routes and 265,600 passengers departed on cross-channel routes. Just 43,200 passengers arrived on transatlantic routes and 43,300 passengers departed on these routes.

Apart from Great Britain (which accounted for almost all cross-channel routes), the most important routing countries for overseas travel in August 2021 were Spain (132,100 arrivals, 121,200 departures), France (57,100 arrivals, 52,900 departures) and Portugal (42,200 arrivals, 40,500 departures).

The year-to-date picture (January-August 2021), shows that 1,741,500 overseas passengers arrived in Ireland and 1,817,100 overseas passengers departed from Ireland. 

This compares to both 3.8 million arrivals and departures in the same period in 2020 and 13.8 million arrivals and 13.9 departures in the same period in 2019.