New figures from the Central Statistics Office show a substantial decline in international travel during the third quarter of 2021 compared to 2019 but the figures show increases in comparison with the third quarter of 2020.
The CSO said that 1.8 million passengers travelled to Ireland and almost 1.8 million passengers departed from the country in the third quarter.
This represented a fall of 69% in both the number of passengers arriving to Ireland and departing from Ireland compared with the same time in 2019.
Today's figures show that in the first nine months of 2021, almost 4.6 million passengers travelled through the main Irish airports - Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Knock and Kerry. This marked a drop 24.9 million compared with the same time in 2019.
Dublin airport accounted for 89.5% of all air passengers handled in the third quarter of 2021, the CSO noted.
Today's CSO figures show that Amsterdam-Schiphol, London-Heathrow and Malaga were the most popular routes for passengers travelling through Dublin airport in the third quarter of this year.
The top route for Cork airport was London-Heathrow, the top route for Shannon airport was London-Stansted while London-Luton was the top route for both Kerry and Knock airports.
Meanwhile, the amount of air freight handled by the five main airports increased by 23% to 39,272 tonnes in the third quarter of 2021 compared to the same time in 2020 and increased by 4% compared to the same time in 2019.
