Ryanair claims part in Irish tourism growth after air tax repeal

Budget airline Ryanair said it delivered 70% of all traffic growth at Cork, Dublin, Knock and Shannon airports this year, which saw record growth for Irish tourism.

Ryanair said that following the decision of Finance Minister, Michael Noonan, to scrap air travel tax in April of last year, it has continued to roll out new routes and more frequencies on existing routes, including its new Dublin to Amsterdam service which runs four times a day.

The annual figures showed traffic growth at Irish airports in 2015 rose by 3.3m to 29.8m, with Ryanair delivering 2.2m or 70% of the growth.

The airline said it will carry over 14m customers through Irish airports next year, on new routes including Dublin to Amsterdam, Athens and Copenhagen.

Head of communications Robin Kiely said: "After five years of decline at Irish airports, the welcome repeal of the air travel tax has resulted in record traffic and tourism growth, demonstrating to our counterparts in the UK and Germany the enormous economic benefits removing APD brings.

“Ryanair will continue to invest in our network and we look forward to welcoming more and more visitors to Ireland on Ryanair's low fare services, as millions of customers choose our low fares, the largest route network in Europe and our ‘Always Getting Better’ customer experience."

At 1110 GMT, Ryanair shares were up 1% at €15.16.