THE north's two main airports carried seven million passengers in 2015 - equivalent to more than four times the region's entire population.
Figures from the Civil Aviation Authority reveal that Belfast International Airport enjoyed an 8.9 per cent passenger increase during the last 12 months to 4,390,407 as it benefited from a number of new European and domestic routes.
At George Best Belfast City, where Aer Lingus is now fully bedded in, numbers were up 5.4 per cent to 2,692,729.
But while the majority of the UK's 60 airports saw improvements, City of Derry was among those where traveller numbers fell back, dropping by 18.8 per cent to 284,482.
That's almost half its 2008 peak figure of 438,996 and may raise further concerns over the cost of the Eglinton facility to taxpayers in the north west (most experts say airports only become financially viable when they attract more than a million passengers a year).
Airports are usually seen as an accurate barometer of the health of the wider economy, because the more money people have, the more they travel. And the more buoyant the economy is, the more they travel on business.
Belfast International - which recently confirmed that Ryanair is setting up a base there from March - said it was "delighted" at the growth in its passenger numbers and believes it is on target by 2017 to surpass its all-time passenger number high of 2007, when 5,272,664 people flew from Aldergrove.
Operations director Alan Whiteside said: "We're seeing encouraging signs of growth in both the business travel and leisure market, and tour operators and airlines continue to offer great value flight and holiday options.
"But it could be so much better if it wasn’t for Dublin Airport's continued offensive into the Northern Ireland market, accounting for over a million lost passenger journeys.
"That's because we've this ridiculous situation where air passenger duty on domestic flights adds £26 on a ticket. That's still a huge issue for our airports and it needs dealt with.
"Imagine what could be done with the removal of that prohibitive tax and the creation of a route development fund - we could be looking at flying to Berlin or Stockholm or Copenhagen and all sorts of places. Just think of the inbound tourism potential."
In the last week Belfast International has announced the creation of 140 jobs at its site - 100 by ground services company Swissport and 40 by security firm ICTS - as it plans for a number of new routes in the coming months.
The UK airports with the most passenger numbers in 2015 were:
1 London Heathrow (74,954,438) - up 2.2 per cent
2 London Gatwick (40,261,212) - up 5.7 per cent
3 Manchester (23,096,829) - up 5.2 per cent
4 London Stansted (22,513,443) - up 12.8 per cent
5 London Luton (12,262,842) - up 17 per cent
6 Edinburgh (11,113,599) - up 9.4 per cent
7 Birmingham (10,180,175) - up 5 per cent
8 Glasgow (8,709,964) - up 13 per cent