Airports Council International data shows Ireland up 386.5% in July, with the UK having the second-biggest resurgence, a 349.6% bounce back. The percentage increases are far ahead of other nations, with third-biggest increase Finland at 268% and Slovakia, the fourth-biggest rise at 167%.

ACI reported traffic across the European airport market up 70.4% year on year in July. However, there is still some ground to make up, with UK airports operating 19% below July 2019 levels, the ACI said. 

Airports in Greece (+5.4%), Luxembourg (+2.2%) and Iceland (+1.7%) achieved a full recovery on 2019 – closely followed by those in Portugal (-1.8%), Romania (-2.9%) and Lithuania (-3%). 

Spain’s airports showed good recovery in July, down only 7.9% on 2019, with Italy’s down 9.6% and France’s – 13.5%

In the UK, Gatwick grew passenger numbers by 677% year on year and Manchester by 482.9%, with Dublin and Heathrow tripling passenger volumes.

Olivier Jankovec, ACI director general, said: “July has kept delivering a much-needed boost in passenger traffic for most of Europe’s airports, driven by predominantly leisure travel, as well as ultra low-cost carriers expanding capacity well above pre-pandemic levels.”

He said it was “essential” the EU brought airport slots rules back to normal “requiring airlines to effectively use these slots for 80% of the time during the forthcoming winter season starting end of October”.