The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority has recently published statistics for Quarter 1 (2026) for Northern Ireland’s 3 airports: Belfast International, Belfast City and the City of Derry.
It has been another positive opening quarter for Northern Ireland’s three airports, with passenger throughput up +2.7% on last year. It follows a similar performance for the same three-month period in 2025, which saw overall traffic grow by 3.4%. Significantly, there has been a recovery in business at Belfast City and City of Derry airports, with around 35,000 more passengers being handled at the north’s two smaller terminals. The International airport, which is the UK’s tenth busiest, continues to see modest growth in its business, achieving all-time record figures in 2024, with 2025 putting in a similar performance.
The increase in traffic at the International has been largely driven by the growth in holiday-related travel. The airport offers flights to around seventy locations, the majority of which are to leisure destinations. Some of these are now all year round, and with increased capacity, this has contributed to positive figures overall in the year’s opening quarter.
Both easyJet and Jet2 have recently based additional aircraft at Aldergrove to support the demand. Ryanair has had two aircraft based at the airport to handle its winter programme of services to Europe for city breaks and to the popular winter sun destinations. In the autumn, easyJet plans to launch twice weekly flights to both Rome and Sharm El Sheikh, adding to the already impressive choice of seasonal holiday destinations that the International is becoming noted for.
Belfast City airport has seen the bulk of its growth coming from increasing route frequency, with another vote of confidence from Aer Lingus Regional, which has recently announced a 750,000 seat sale for this year’s summer season. The Irish-based airline continues to consolidate on its eleven domestic routes, which account for around half the number of destinations out of Belfast City. Once again, easyJet is growing its foothold at the Harbour facility, having recently announced its plan to launch a new winter service to Southend, making it easyJet’s eighth route from Belfast City.
At the City of Derry airport, the increase in passenger numbers can be partially explained by easyJet’s expansion at the north-west facility. The 10.3% growth in the first quarter was also helped by a significant increase in inward tourism to the north-west. According to the airport’s Managing Director, Steven Frazer, both Ryanair and Loganair are also performing strongly on the Manchester and Glasgow routes. The second quarter at City of Derry should also see growth, helped by an increase in the number of annual pilgrimage flights, operated by Joe Walsh Tours and Marian Pilgrimages.
The potential for growth at City of Derry may also come from increased frequency on its scheduled flights, apart from the Heathrow route, which operates every day. None of the other routes are operated as a full seven-day rotation, so there would be scope to increase capacity should demand continue to grow.
The proposed launch of services to Dublin in the autumn is a major talking point within the aviation community at present, as tickets are allegedly to go on sale shortly, yet there has been no firm announcement of which airline will be flying the route. Most industry experts believe that Aer Lingus Regional will be the operator, although Loganair also gets a mention. All that is known at present is that the Dublin service will be a twice-daily rotation, according to the City of Derry airport manager. No mention yet of whether the service will operate all seven days of the week.
A public survey has recently been launched to gather people’s views as to the general way forward for the City of Derry Airport, especially as the Public Service Obligation (PSO) route to Heathrow is up for renewal next April. With PSOs, there is never any certainty, so understandably there will be nervous times ahead for the airport authorities. The Heathrow PSO was hard won and it is one that City of Derry Airport could ill afford to lose at such a critical stage in its recovery.
Number of Passengers Handled by Northern Ireland’s Airports for Q1
| AIRPORT | 2024 Q1 (Jan–Mar) | 2025 Q1 (Jan–Mar) | 2026 Q1 (Jan–Mar) | % Change 2026 v 2025 Q1 |
| Belfast International | 1,325,342 | 1,363,099 | 1,381,079 | +1.3% |
| Belfast City | 536,143 | 541,615 | 572,071 | +5.6% |
| Total Belfast | 1,861,485 | 1,904,714 | 1,953,150 | +2.5% |
| City of Derry | 28,371 | 49,808 | 54,961 | +10.3% |
| Total N. Ireland | 1,889,856 | 1,954,522 | 2,008,111 | +2.7% |
Photographs by Michael McElroy, Jacob Bushe and Aerial Vision NI
