By Delcan Hasson
The UK Civil Aviation Authority has recently published statistics for the final quarter of 2024 for Northern Ireland’s three airports: Belfast International, Belfast City and the City of Derry
The final quarter of 2024 (October – December) has seen a continuation of the upward trend from previous quarters, with Belfast International leading the way – up 8.2% on the previous year.
With Belfast City having achieved an 3.6% increase, the Belfast airports combined have returned a healthy 6.9% uplift to end the year.
The City of Derry airport’s performance was greatly boosted by the launch of easyJet services to Edinburgh and Liverpool in November. However, the 62.8% improvement in fortunes comes from a comparatively low base of just 32,262 passengers in 2023. There will be some disappointment at City of Derry that the improvement in Q4 was not enough to beat the 2019 tally of 54,625.
The overall increase of 7.8% for all of Northern Ireland’s airports for the final quarter of the year is certainly positive and an encouraging backdrop for the coming year.
Number of Passengers handled by Northern Ireland’s Airports For Q4 – 2019, 2023 and 2024
| Airport | 2019 Q4 (Oct – Dec) | 2023 Q4 (Oct – Dec) | 2024 Q4 (Oct – Dec) | % Change 2024 – V – 2019 | % Change 2024 – V – 2023 |
| Belfast International | 1,321,273 | 1,441,749 | 1,560,153 | +18.1% | +8.2% |
| Belfast City | 545,172 | 562,536 | 583,004 | +6.9% | +3.6% |
| Total Belfast | 1,866,445 | 2,004,285 | 2,143,157 | +14.8% | +6.9% |
| City of Derry | 54,625 | 32,262 | 52,522 | -3.8% | +62.8% |
| Total NI | 1,921,070 | 2,036,547 | 2,195,679 | +14.3% | +7.8% |
For the twelve months of 2024, the Belfast gateways have delivered a 13% increase over 2023 and City of Derry is up 14.9% for its full year. There is every reason to believe that 2025 can continue this upward trajectory. However, there are always uncertainties in the airline business and challenges are never far away.
The City of Derry airport will be disappointed with Ryanair’s recent decision to abandon the Birmingham route from the end of March after just one year. Also, the airport’s only summer holiday flights to Faro are not operating for this coming season which is something of a symbolic as well as a commercial setback.
At Belfast City, the fall in passenger numbers on the London City route in 2024 will have been noted. Once again, the general decline in business-related travel may be contributing to Belfast City’s failure to achieve 2019 levels of traffic. A 2.6% shortfall, at just under 2.4 million passengers, was a disappointing end to what was a quite challenging year for the harbour facility. However, Aer Lingus Regional has made a strong commitment to the airport’s future. It is worth noting that the regional carrier has handled 537,000 passengers on four of the airport’s top ten domestic routes, that it operates exclusively, and is seeing strong growth.
Reviewing the full year, it is clear that the International airport has recovered best from the slump of the lockdown years – up 7.3% on 2019, and now powering ahead of 2023 by 13%. Both Ryanair and easyJet are competing on the three busiest domestic routes, Stansted, Manchester and Edinburgh and on five of the top holiday destinations alongside Jet2 and TUI. Indeed, Belfast International now completely dominates the holiday market with more sun destinations being added for 2025. Holiday traffic in 2024 accounted for over 1.4 million passengers and half of the airport’s top twenty routes.
Perhaps the most interesting development to have taken place in the last year is the involvement of easyJet in all three Northern Ireland airports. The low cost airline operates all the top twenty routes out of the International, four of the top ten routes out of Belfast City and now one third of flights out of City of Derry. The question is – will all this choice and competition drive passenger numbers higher in the year ahead? In theory it should.
Number of Passengers handled by Northern Ireland’s Airports For the Years – 2019, 2023 and 2024 (Rounded)
| Airport | 2019 Year (000s) | 2023 Year (000s) | 2024 Year (000s) | % Change 2024 – V – 2019 | % Change 2024 – V – 2023 |
| Belfast International | 6278 | 5957 | 6734 | +7.3% | +13.0% |
| Belfast City | 2455 | 2115 | 2391 | -2.6% | +13.0% |
| Total Belfast | 8733 | 8072 | 9125 | +4.5% | +13.0% |
| City of Derry | 204 | 154 | 177 | -13.2% | +14.9% |
| Total NI | 8937 | 8226 | 9302 | +4.1% | +13.1% |
