Harbour Traffic Information

Isle of Man Monthly Harbours’ Traffic Summary 

April 2019

Below is a summary of the Isle of Man passenger traffic statistics for the Island’s Harbours for April 2019. The results were encouraging for, as predicted, the late Easter holiday has meant that the numbers have increased significantly over April 2018.  Reassuringly, the total for March plus April 2019 is slightly higher than March plus April 2018.  In summary: 

Overall passengers

• A total of 56,592 passengers used the Isle of Man Harbours in April 2018, a substantial increase of 6,592 or almost 14% on April 2018. Scheduled passenger traffic constituted 96.5% of the month’s total passengers.
• This gave a total for the first four months of 2019 of 107,396 passengers, just 0.38% fewer than for the same period in 2018. The last two months have seen an overall increase of some 0.5%, an encouraging result after a period of decline.
• The moving annual total (April 2018 to March 2019) for all harbours’ passengers was down to 576,655, a 5.4% decrease over the previous 12 months. 

Scheduled passengers and vehicles

• Overall, scheduled service passenger numbers were up by 12.6%, with a total from the four routes of 54,632 during March.
• The Liverpool route was up by 17% to 31,900 passengers, and Heysham was also up, by a solid 7.6%, with just over 20,000 passengers using the route.
• Belfast saw a 399 passenger decrease, more than compensated by an increase of 479 in Dublin passengers.
• Scheduled passengers’ vehicles saw a 10.8% increase with 13,865 vehicles carried.

Non-Scheduled passengers

• 68.7% more non-scheduled passenger numbers used the Island’s Harbours in April, with almost 2,000 passengers and crews using the facilities.
• This was principally due to cruise passenger numbers increasing by 310% as over 1,500 cruise ship visitors took the opportunity to visit the Island.