PASSENGER NUMBERS at Shannon Airport increased by 8 percent last year but remain 78 percent less than 2019 figures.
Shannon Airport passenger numbers rose 8% in 2021 compared to 2020, with most travel taking place in the latter part of the year following the rollout of the vaccination programme and the introduction of the EU Digital Covid Cert enabling the lifting of restrictions on non-essential air travel from mid-July of last year.
Almost 380,000 people used Shannon Airport in 2021, compared to just over 352,000 in 2020. This is however still down 78% on 2019, the last full year of operation before the pandemic.
European and UK services in Shannon took a step in the right direction during 2021. European passenger numbers from Shannon recovered to 65% of 2019 levels, and the UK market to 43% of 2019 levels. Both markets saw a fivefold increase in passengers between August and November 2021 when compared to the same period in 2020.
CEO of Shannon Group, Mary Considine said 2021 was “another challenging year” but remained optimistic for the future. “While it will still take time for the unwinding of Covid restrictions to filter down into the aviation sector, it is a really positive development for industries devastated by the pandemic”.
She outlined, “This summer we will operate services to 25 destinations with 107 planned weekly frequencies. The return of Transatlantic services to Boston, New York (JFK) and Newark from Shannon in March, combined with our strong European summer flight schedule and the return to full strength of our Heathrow services, are reasons to be optimistic”.
Progress was made last year on the transfer of Shannon Group’s heritage sites to relevant local authorities. She said, the transfer of these activities will assist Shannon Group to focus on the recovery of the airport, build back international passengers, while continuing to develop its aviation cluster and associated property activities.
Visitor numbers to the heritage sites continued to be impacted by the pandemic recording a drop of almost 50% since 2019 when the sites had 963,000 visitors. However, there was some recovery in 2021 with almost 496,000 visitors recorded, up from just over 300,000 visitors recorded in 2020.
The Group’s property development activities across the Shannon campus remained strong in 2021.
