Kerry Airport’s passenger figures in 2023 soared to levels that have not been seen for 15 years with an increase of 18% on the total from 2022.

A total of 419,281 passengers travelled through Kerry Airport last year on flights to Dublin and overseas destinations in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal.

That was just 4,000 less than in 2008 which was the highest ever year of traffic since scheduled flights commenced at Kerry Airport.

The CEO of Kerry Airport, John Mulhern, said: “More than eight million people have flown in and out of Kerry Airport in the 34 years since scheduled flights commenced in 1989. We’ve surpassed the 400,000-mark twice during that period – in 2023 and before that in 2008 when passenger figures peaked at 423,248. We were on an upward trajectory in 2019 before the aviation industry was decimated by the pandemic. The recovery has been achieved thanks to the commitment of the Kerry Airport Board, our hard-working management team and staff, the airlines who service the routes and of course, the travelling public.”

Flights to the UK - Manchester, London Luton and London Stansted - accounted for half of the overall passenger footfall in 2023.

The summer sun destinations in Spain and Portugal saw an 92% average seat occupancy in 2023 and booking activity is strong ahead of the commencement of the routes on April 1 and 4.

Kerry Airport recently announced that Chalair will return to the Kingdom to service three routes to popular summer holiday destinations in France commencing from 29th June 2024.

Such was the success of last summer’s weekly service to Brittany, Chalair decided to introduce 13 weekly flights between Kerry and Brest in Brittany and Caen in Normandy and 10 weekly flights to Pau near the Pyrénées until September.

Kerry Airport already serves Alicante, Faro, Dublin, London (Luton & Stansted), Manchester and Frankfurt Hahn with Ryanair.