Airports Record Nine Percent Drop in Passenger

• Airports Record Nine Percent Drop in Passenger Traffic

The harsh economic climate that the country is currently experiencing has made the aviation sector to record a decline of nine per cent in activities in the second quarter of this year, according to figures published by the National Bureau of Statistics.

The NBS in its report on the aviation sector explained that the numbers of travellers, aircraft, cargo weight as well as mails that were moved during the period declined as against what were recorded in the first quarter of the year.

For instance, the report, made available to our correspondent on Sunday said 54,405 aircraft arrived at, or departed from Nigerian airports in the second quarter of this year.

This, the report added, represented a decrease of nine per cent relative to the 59,808 aircraft recorded in the first quarter.

In terms of passenger traffic, the report stated that this dropped marginally to 3,532,775 passengers in the second quarter of this year from 3,549,360 recorded in the first quarter.

The report added that in both first and second quarters of this year, domestic travels recorded a smaller growth rate than international travels.

For instance, it said there were 2,475,448 domestic passengers in the first quarter of 2016 and 2,411,251 in the second quarter, representing quarterly decline of 9.1 per cent and 2.6 per cent, respectively.

The report stated, “Nigerian aviation recorded a decline in activity between the first half of 2016 and the second half of 2015, both in terms of the numbers of travellers and aircraft, and the weight of cargo and mail moved.

“A total of 59,808 aircraft arrived at, or departed from Nigerian airports in the first quarter of 2016, a decrease of 6.6 per cent relative to the previous quarter, and of 7.7 per cent relative to the first quarter of 2015.”