Dublin Airport Holds at 3.34 Million Passengers in September as Growth Settles at 4% for the Year

Rajkumar Agarwal10 October 20267 min read0 viewsAirports & Infrastructure
Dublin Airport Holds at 3.34 Million Passengers in September as Growth Settles at 4% for the Year

Dublin Airport closed September with 3.34 million passengers, the same as in September 2025, according to figures published on 9 October 2026 and reported by RTE. The flat month leaves the first nine months of the year at just under 29 million passengers, an increase of 4% on the same period of 2025. The release from operator daa also carried an infrastructure note: the company said it is applying to amend its planning permission for the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) preclearance facility in Terminal 2.

Growth has continued at Dublin across the year, but September's passenger count matched the previous September, while the airport still reported a record September day.

What the September figures show

According to the figures reported by RTE and by local outlet Dublin People, which drew on the daa release, September's 3.34 million passengers matched the previous September. Terminal 1 handled around 17.4 million of the year-to-date total, while Terminal 2 handled about 11.6 million.

The busiest day of the month was Sunday 13 September, when 128,600 passengers passed through the two terminals. That was 4% above the previous busiest September day, according to the reports. Dublin People added that more than 100,000 passengers used the airport on 26 of the month's 30 days.

Transfer traffic was the standout category. Transfer passenger numbers rose 37% compared with September 2025, according to the figures reported. Dublin is a mid-sized connecting point for traffic between Europe and North America, so a rise in transfers feeds directly into the viability of transatlantic services.

On the route side, the reports listed London Heathrow, Amsterdam, Manchester, Malaga and London Gatwick as the top destinations. North American routes carried 493,000 passengers, up 3%, while UK routes grew by 2%.

Why daa says demand held up

Gary McLean, Dublin Airport's managing director, attributed the month's performance partly to Ireland's EU Presidency, which RTE reported was continuing to bring politicians and delegates from around the world to the country. Golf events also featured: the Walker Cup and the Irish Open were cited by RTE, while Dublin People named tournaments at Lahinch and Doonbeg. Returning business and student travel were also listed as drivers.

Dublin People further reported that daa credited improved security screening for the smooth running of the summer. The airport said it had its busiest-ever summer period, with nearly 15 million passengers carried since late May, RTE reported.

The two outlets differ slightly in which golf events they name, and the sources do not give a breakdown of how many passengers each event produced. No figure in either report ties a specific event to a specific passenger count, so the contribution of each driver cannot be separated out from what has been published.

The summer in context

A report from The Irish Times on 9 September placed the summer in sharper relief. Dublin handled 11.3 million passengers across June, July and August 2026, and every day of the three months exceeded 100,000 passengers, according to the paper. August alone brought 3.8 million passengers, 1% up on August 2025. The newspaper reported that 16 August was the third-busiest day in the airport's history, with 134,700 passengers.

By the end of August the airport had handled 25.6 million passengers across the first eight months, 5% above the equivalent period of 2025, per The Irish Times.

McLean said, as quoted by the Irish Times, that August was the 17th consecutive month of growth. September's flat result therefore sits as an interruption in a growth run rather than a continuation of it, at least on the figures reported. The reports reviewed do not explain the flat month beyond the demand drivers listed above, and no outlet attributed it to a particular cause.

The 32 million cap

A constraint sits behind all of these numbers. Dublin Airport operates under a planning limit of 32 million passengers a year. The Irish Times reported that the government passed legislation in July 2026 allowing the cap to be adjusted, and that daa has asked for an increase to 40 million. That detail rests on the Irish Times report alone among the pages reviewed here, and the details of how any change would be processed were not set out in the material read.

Just under 29 million passengers had passed through Dublin in the first nine months. None of the sources projected a year-end figure.

US preclearance: a facility under pressure

The infrastructure item in the release concerns the CBP preclearance facility in Terminal 2. Dublin People reported that daa plans to submit an application to amend its existing permission to include an additional storey to the permitted CBP building, along with design refinements and operational improvements. The application is said to be intended to improve passenger circulation, accessibility and the overall experience, and to accommodate enhanced facilities for transfer passengers.

Preclearance matters to Dublin's commercial position. Dublin and Shannon are the Irish airports where US-bound passengers complete immigration, customs and agriculture inspections before departure. RTE has previously described the benefit as allowing travellers to be treated as domestic arrivals on landing in the United States, avoiding immigration queues and collecting their bags.

The facility has been a pressure point for years. When the expansion was first contested, the planning record cited by RTE in May 2025 showed that overflow queuing had been needed on five days out of every seven in the summer of 2022. Consultants for daa concluded in those documents that the then-current facility did not have the capacity to serve existing passengers.

The planning history

Fingal County Council refused the original expansion in July 2023, saying it was premature pending the road authority's determination of the detailed road network serving the area. daa's consultants called that decision, in language RTE quoted from the documents, "entirely unexpected, totally unreasonable and unjustified". The appeals board, An Bord Pleanála, later reversed the refusal and cleared the project, finding no unacceptable traffic or visual-amenity impacts, according to RTE's May 2025 report.

When daa first applied in 2023, The Irish Times reported that the proposal was for a three-storey building with five entry e-gates and eight screening lanes, forming part of a wider capital investment programme the paper put at 1.9 billion euro. The company said then that the work would not increase the airport's passenger capacity. The new amendment would add a further storey to that permitted structure; the sources reviewed give no cost, floor area or construction timetable for it.

What the amendment would add

According to Dublin People, the extra floor space would support the integration of a fixed passenger link to Pier 4, alongside the transfer-passenger facilities and improved circulation, and would provide infrastructure needed to reach Zero Emission Building standards. A fixed link to a pier would change how passengers reach the preclearance hall, though the report does not describe the route in detail.

The application had not been decided at the time of the reports. The planning authority will weigh it in the ordinary way, and the sources give no date for a decision.

What to watch

Three things follow from the published material. First, whether September's flat reading proves a one-month pause or the start of a slower autumn; daa's October figures will show it. Second, whether the cap legislation passed in July leads to a decision on the 40 million request, which would shape the airport's long-term investment case. Third, how the planning authority handles the preclearance amendment, given that the earlier application ran from a council refusal in July 2023 to appeals board clearance in May 2025.

For passengers, the immediate picture is unchanged. Dublin remains one of the busiest airports in Europe by its own record days, security screening was credited with a smooth summer, and the preclearance building that US-bound travellers rely on is still the subject of planning rather than construction.

Sources

#passenger traffic#capacity cap#daa#Dublin Airport#Terminal 2#US preclearance
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