Dublin Airport has reported that more than 18.4m passengers travelled through the airport last year, an 8% increase over 2004 representing an additional 1.3m passengers in the year.

Main contributors to the growth were the airport's European and North Atlantic routes. European traffic grew by an impressive 18% with more than 8.1m passengers travelling in 2005. This growth was delivered through a combination of new European routes and larger aircraft operating on existing services.
Significant growth was also achieved on North American routes in 2005 with passenger numbers increasing by 14%. In all, more than 1.2m passengers travelled on the many transatlantic services to and from Dublin Airport.
Traffic to and from the UK declined by 1% with just over 8.2m passengers travelling in 2005. This slight decline can be attributed to a combination of a reduction in capacity at Dublin Airport and a fall off in connecting traffic as a result of a growing direct network to the UK from other Irish airports. Domestic traffic fell by 5% to 650,000 passengers.
Commenting on last year's performance, Director of Dublin Airport, Robert Hilliard said: ‘This is the 14th consecutive year of growth in passenger numbers at Dublin Airport and I am confident that this trend will continue in 2006. Our traffic forecasts indicate a very strong possibility that the Airport will break the key 20m passenger threshold for the first time, later this year.’