Passenger numbers on most routes out of Ronaldsway fell sharply last month.

The airport has nevertheless reported a near-10% increase in total passenger numbers compared with the same month last year.

Daily runway closures introduced in mid-June to address a staffing shortage in air traffic control led to significant flight disruption with many choosing to travel by sea instead. Those runway closures were reduced early this month.

Loganair saw passenger numbers fall by a total of 9% in July compared with the same month last year, with services to Birmingham, Liverpool, London City and Manchester all seeing a drop in demand and only Heathrow and Edinburgh seeing increases, of 29.2% and 6.8% respectively.

Birmingham was down 17.3%, Liverpool by 6.6%, London City by 5.6% and Manchester by 31.6%.

EasyJet’s Gatwick route had 1,857 fewer passengers – a decrease of 14% – compared to the same month last year. Its Belfast, Bristol and Liverpool routes also saw falls, of 7.8%, 12.4% and 7.1% respectively.

But the budget airline’s Manchester route – which did not operate in July last year – carried 6,352 passengers last month, which helped easyJet to report growth of 11.8% for the month.

And healthy passengers numbers on Emerald’s routes to Belfast and Dublin, together with non-scheduled services, allowed the airport to post a 9.99% increase in passenger numbers for the month, up from 49,547 in July 2022 to 54,498 in July 2023.

But this figure is well down from the 68,397 reported by the airport for June. Passenger numbers for May totalled 55,419 and April’s were 53,632.