Nigeria’s Airports Recorded 15.2m Passengers in 2016 - NBS

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said that a total of 15,232, 597 passengers travelled through Nigeria’s airports in 2016.

The NBS which disclosed this figure in a report on “Fourth Quarter 2016 and Full Year 2016 Air Transportation Data’’ released in Abuja, stated that 72 per cent were domestic passengers.

The report stated that 72 per cent were domestic passengers, travelling within Nigeria, and the remaining 28 per cent were international, entering or leaving Nigeria.

“Between 2015 and 2016 the number of passengers recorded by the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has increased by 6.3 per cent.

“However, since the publication of the last report, FAAN has included data on passengers travelling through more airports, including Bauchi, Eket, Gombe and Uyo.

“Together, the newly included airports accounted for 667,877 passengers in 2016, or 4.4 per cent of the total.

“Excluding these from the comparison with 2015, reveals that between these two years, total passenger traffic increased by 1.6 per cent for those airports included in both years,” NBS said.

The report stated that in both the third and final quarters of 2016, there was a quarterly decline in the number of passengers travelling through Nigerian airports.

It stated that between the second and third quarters, the number fell by 1.0 per cent, from 3,900,649 to 3,861,252.

NBS, however, noted that in the final quarter, the fall was more pronounced; the number fell by 5.6 per cent to reach 3,644,844.

“This contrasts with both 2015, in which the number of passengers increased slightly between the third and fourth quarters.