“Aircraft Movement in Nigerian Airspace Jumped By 6.9% in Q4 2015” – NBS

According to data recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, the total number of aircraft movement either arriving or departing the Nigerian airports surged to 61,692, representing 6.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2015.

This is a contrast when compared to the third quarter of 2015, which had 57,704 of aircraft movement.

The third quarter aircraft movement however decreased by 1.1 per cent in relative to second quarter of the same year under review.

The Bureau said the increase in aircraft movement in the fourth quarter was as a result of the festive period; Christmas and

New Year celebrations in that period.

However, NBS, hinted that the statistics of both third and fourth quarter of 2015 represented a notable decline relative to the same quarters of the previous year.

The NBS in its statistics emphasized that aircraft movement in the third quarter of 2015 reduced by 10.3 per cent when compared with third quarter of 2014 while the quarter four 2015 represented 13.6 per cent reduction in the same period of 2014.

The bureau added, “These declines were both larger than the corresponding year-on-year declines in passenger numbers, indicating that passengers per flight increased over this period. In contrast with the number of passengers, the year-on-year fall in the number of domestic flights was larger than the fall in the number of international flights.

“In the third and fourth quarters of 2015, there were 11.3 per cent and 14.3 per cent fewer domestic flights than in the same quarter of 2014 respectively, which resulted in a total of 46,157 and 50,686 flights in the third and fourth quarter.”