- ‘Airports Recorded 4.9% Decline in Passenger Traffic in Q2’
The number of air passengers dropped by 4.9 per cent from 3.85 million in the first quarter of this year to 3.65 million in the second quarter, a report on the aviation sector released by the National Bureau of Statistics has revealed.
The report, which was made available on Sunday, stated that during the second quarter of this year, 2.65 million passengers travelled through the nation’s domestic airports.
The 2.65 million, according to the report, represents about 73.6 per cent of the total number of passengers that travelled through the airports during the period.
It added that a total of one million passengers travelled through the international airports. This, the report stated, represented about 27.4 per cent of the total travel.
Compared to the number of passengers that travelled through the domestic and international airports in the first quarter, the report noted that the second quarter figures represented a decline of 4.52 per cent and 5.86 per cent, respectively.
This, according to the report, underpinned the slower growth in passenger traffic in the second quarter of this year.
The report read in part, “The first two quarters of 2018 saw mixed performances in the various items that make up airport transportation in Nigeria.
“The total number of passengers, who passed through Nigerian airports, reached 3,845,853 in the first quarter of 2018, a 33.51 per cent year-on-year growth from the same quarter of 2017; and 3,657,555 in the second quarter of 2018, a smaller year-on-year growth of 15.24 per cent from the same quarter in 2017.
“Consequently, there was 4.9 per cent decline in passengers for the second quarter 2018 when compared to the preceding quarter.”
It added, “Total aircraft traffic declined year-on-year for both Q1 (1.48 per cent) and Q2 (10.17 per cent) when compared to the corresponding quarter. In the first half of 2018, aircraft traffic totalled 96,659, a 5.9 per cent decline from the total aircraft recorded in the same period last year.
“A significant year-on-year decline in air cargo traffic via Lagos for both Q1 2018 (49.8 per cent) and Q2 2018 (65.4 per cent) led to an overall year-on-year decline of 37.8 per cent for the first half of the year.”
In terms of the number of passengers that passed through the airports during the period, the report stated that Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, and Owerri served over 89.39 per cent of the total passengers in the first two quarters of this year.
It noted that the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos remained the busiest in the country for both international and domestic travellers.
The airport served 3,527,851 passengers or 48.71 per cent of total air passengers in the first half of the year.
