Dublin Airport has announced an 8 per cent year on year rise in passengers going through it for August, with 13.7 million passengers so far this year showing the popularity of flying.
The recent FlightFest in Dublin also proved there is a real passion for plane-spotting with 130,000 people lining the Liffey to watch amongst other an A380 zoom through the city centre.
Who would of thought Ireland had a secret love affair with aviation or metal tube like birds in the sky!
Photo by Clare Cunningham
One of the most exciting moments at Flight Fest was the double decker bus of the sky - the British Airways 8380 - which can take over 550 passengers. Another surprise was the Ryanair Boeing which had 'You'll Never Beat D Irish' written on its fuselage. My dad Hamish McKean was there, he explained the mood.
Aviation runs in my family, on my mum and dad's side. One grandpa helped set up BEA in Scotland, now BA and even got an OBE, the other brought low cost tourism to Mallorca and I've live in Ireland since Italia '90 because my dad got a job in Ryanair.
I visited Dublin Airport and stood on the road to St Margaret's on a grassy mound with a air traffic control radio and binoculars. I knocked on a few windows and one women drove off. I think she thought I was a dogger! I eventually met with my new plane spotter friends. We were all wearing Anoraks...
The aviation enthusiasts collect registrations and photos. Jacob Struben photographer and plane spotter told me about the Aer Lingus planes being called after saints.
Aidan Nolan who runs facebook.com/AirlinerExperience told me about something he feels very serious about, the Middle Eastern airlines which will take you to Australia. He sees them as the new famine ships.
The people I met were so passionate and they loved planes so much.
Aidan Nolan who runs facebook.com/AirlinerExperience is bringing a Fokker F100 to Dublin airport on the 13th of October, which will fly along the Scottish coast, you get to meet the Pilot and crew and look at the engine of the Fokker. This is a big deal in aviation circles...
Newstalk's Niamh Hassell's sister Aoife Somers is a huge plane spotter too, she says at one point she was afraid of flying, now she just loves the logistics, logging onto a flight App called Flight Radar 24 and looking inside real cockpits, she says she's not a freak.
