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The October flight statistics offer little room for optimism as the downward trend in traffic continues. On the North Atlantic, which accounts for approximately 70% of the IAA's revenue, traffic is down 5.5%, while winter capacity for 2009/2010 has been cut by many of the major airlines which operate on that route.    

As airlines struggle in the current economic environment, many are annoucing losses and/ or a drop in passenger revenue. These include Aer Lingus, British Airways and Finnair while the Association of European Airlines is predicting an operating loss of €2.9 billion in 2009 for its members, 50% more than in 2008. Meanwhile IATA, the International Air Transport Association, has stated that it expects the industry to lose $11 billion this year.  

Given the difficult times that are being endured by the aviation industry, the IAA has introduced a number of cost containment measures to minimse the increase in its user charges for 2010. By undertaking these measures, applicable under a cost recovery scheme, the Authority has managed to reduce a forecast increase of 17.5% to approx 3.9%.

October traffic figures are as follows: 

• En route operations (over flights) were down -5.5 % on October 2008.
• North Atlantic Communications flights were down -5.7% % on October 2008.
• Commercial Air traffic movements at the State airports were down on October 2008, as follows, Dublin -17.9%, Shannon -14.1% and Cork -25.8%.  

January 2009 to the end of October 2009 shows the following cumulative trends:

• En route Over flights, down by -8.1 %
• North Atlantic Communications, down by -7.9%
• Dublin Commercial Terminal Movements, down by -15.2%
• Cork Commercial Terminal Movements, down by -26.3%
• Shannon Commercial Terminal Movements, down by -13.9%
• Combined Commercial  movements for the three State airports were down -16.5%

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