Dublin, Aug 18 (IANS): The number of passengers handled by Irish airports continued to fall in July due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, albeit at a slower pace, according to the figures released by the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO).

In the month, the three largest airports in Ireland, namely Dublin Airport, Cork Airport and Shannon Airport, handled a total of 416,436 passengers, down 89.4 per cent when compared with over 3.9 million passengers handled in the same month of last year, Xinhua news agency reported.

The three airports handled over 6.3 million passengers in the first seven months of this year, down 70.3 per cent year-on-year, the CSO said on Monday.

Data from the CSO showed that the combined number of passengers handled by the top three airports account for about 97 percent of the country's total.

Irish airports reported a year-on-year drop of 57.5 per cent in passenger numbers in March after a nationwide lockdown was imposed by the government to curb the spread of the deadly virus in the country.

The falling passenger numbers of Irish airports showed a month-on-month improvement after peaking in April.

The numbers of passengers handled by Irish airports in April, May and June were 99.2 per cent, 98.7 per cent and 97.5 per cent lower than a year ago, respectively.

Dublin Airport predicted it would take at least two or three years for its passenger numbers to return to normal levels.