More than 10.3 million fewer passengers used Irish airports in Q2 this year, compared to the same period in 2019, new CSO data shows.

Passenger numbers for the first half of 2020 fell by 66.1%, in comparison with 2019.

99.2% fall

Data for April 2020 shows a fall of 99.2% in passengers handled by Irish airports compared to the same month in 2019.

In Q2, almost 72,000 passengers travelled to Ireland and 90,000 passengers departed from Ireland.

In the first half of 2020, 6,080,877 passengers travelled through the main Irish airports, a two-thirds fall on the previous year.

The number of flights to and from Irish airports in Q2 fell by more than 67,500 while passenger numbers fell by 99.2%.

In the second quarter of 2020, 164,400 passengers passed through the five main Irish airports, a decrease of 98.4% over the same period in 2019.

Over 6,000 flights were handled by Ireland's main airports in the second quarter of 2020. This is a drop of 91.4% compared to the same period last year.

Dublin accounted for 85.6% of all flights (5,474).

Air freight

However, air freight handled by Irish airports in Q2 fell only marginally, by 3.8% to 32,593 tonnes in Q2.

However, freight in the first half of 2020 is up by 5.0% to 69,726 tonnes, compared with the first half of 2019.