By Declan Hasson
The UK Civil Aviation Authority has recently published statistics for the third quarter of 2024 for Northern Ireland’s 3 airports: Belfast International, Belfast City and the City of Derry
The third quarter of 2024 (July – Sept.) has seen passenger numbers continuing to increase when compared to 2023, up +12.6% overall. By far the bulk of that increase emanated from the two Belfast gateways, which collectively delivered a 12.7% increase. City of Derry airport has maintained its recent momentum with an 8.7% improvement over last year’s third quarter.
Number of Passengers handled by Northern Ireland’s Airports For Q3 – 2019, 2023 and 2024
| Airport | 2019 | 2023 | 2024 | % Change 2024 – 2019 | % Change 2024 – 2023 |
| Q3 (Jul – Sep) | Q3 (Jul – Sep) | Q3 (Jul – Sep) | |||
| Belfast International | 1,855,793 | 1,804,999 | 2,035,810 | +9.7% | +12.8% |
| Belfast City | 716,080 | 584,969 | 656,725 | -8.3% | +12.3% |
| Total Belfast | 2,571,873 | 2,389,968 | 2,692,535 | +4.7% | +12.7% |
| City of Derry | 55,918 | 48,327 | 52,513 | -6.1% | +8.7% |
| Total NI | 2,627,791 | 2,438,295 | 2,745,048 | +4.5% | +12.6% |
However, once again, achieving the levels of business experienced in 2019 has been challenging for both Belfast City and the City of Derry. Both airports have come up short of the elusive targets set in the pre-pandemic year, with Belfast City recording significant falls.
An 8.3% (59,355 passengers) drop is similar to what it reported in the second quarter and suggests that by year-end, the downtown facility may end up short of the 2019 tally. Belfast City is a predominantly domestic airport, with only 7% of its traffic designated as non-domestic (charter/holiday). It depends heavily on ‘business-related’ travel, which still remains adversely impacted by changing work practices since the lockdowns.
However, efforts continue to redress the imbalance, with Aer Lingus Regional (Emerald Airlines) announcing its biggest ever winter schedule, with 450,000 seats on offer. Operating a busy network of ten popular UK destinations, the airline is increasing services to Leeds, Edinburgh and Southampton, this season. KLM is also boosting services, having recently launched a ‘double daily’ rotation to Amsterdam.
City of Derry is also short of its 2019 benchmark target, albeit by just 3,405 passengers (6.1%), but the recent introduction of flights to Liverpool and Edinburgh, by easyJet has the potential to reverse recent trends.
Belfast International continues to grow its business strongly, having delivered well over two million passengers in the third quarter, almost 10% up on 2019 and close to 13% up on last year.
Whereas all three airports are trading ahead of 2023, after nine months, the challenge of 2019 is still an issue. Although collectively, the Northern Ireland airports are now 1.3% ahead of 2019 after the third quarter, it is the International airport that is delivering the growth.
With 2025, just around the corner, it still seems incredible that the pandemic of 2020 could have done so much damage to an ever-growing industry.
Number of Passengers handled by Northern Ireland’s Airports For the First Nine Months of 2019, 2023 and 2024
| Airport | 2019 | 2023 | 2024 | % Change 2024 – 2019 | % Change 2024 – 2023 |
| Nine Months (Jan – Sep) | Nine Months (Jan – Sep) | Nine Months (Jan – Sep) | |||
| Belfast International | 4,957,290 | 4,515,306 | 5,173,796 | +4.3% | +14.6% |
| Belfast City | 1,910,088 | 1,552,617 | 1,808,120 | -5.3% | +16.5% |
| Total Belfast | 6,867,378 | 6,067,923 | 6,981,916 | +1.6% | +15.1% |
| City of Derry | 149,152 | 122,224 | 124,573 | -16.5% | +1.9% |
| Total NI | 7,016,530 | 6,190,147 | 7,106,489 | +1.3% | +14.8% |
