International air passengers departing Nigeria rose to 2.25 million in 2018, up from 1.99 million in 2017, representing a 13% rise in international air passengers that departed the country.
This is contained in a report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for the period ended December, 2018.
According to the NBS report, in 2018, domestic air traveler’s traffic stood at 10.38 million while the international air travelers stood at N4.48 million. This indicates that 70% of air transport traffic 2018 consisted of domestic air travelers.
Meanwhile, air passengers’ arrival also increased to 2.18 million in 2018. In 2017, international passengers’ arrival stood at 1.94 million, indicating that international air passengers increased by 12% year-on-year.
Hence, international Air passengers that arrived Nigeria stood at 2.25 million in 2018, as against passenger departure that stood at 2.18 million.
Also, both domestic air travellers departures and arrivals rose by 23% in 2018. For domestic air travellers, arrivals increased to 6.4 million in 2018, compared to 5.19 million in 2017.
Similarly, domestic departures recorded 6.37 million people in 2018, compared to 5.18 million in 2017. This represents a 23% rise year-on-year.
For the period under review, domestic Aircraft movements increased by 11.2% in 2018 year-on-year. In 2018, Aircraft movements rose to 234,367 as against 210,693 in 2017.
A further breakdown shows that aircraft arrivals hits 117,533 in 2018, higher than in 2017. Also, departures rose to 116,834.
Meanwhile, International Aircraft departures rose higher than arrivals. Total International Aircrafts movements for 2018 increased by 38.8%, as against the 9.16% growth of 2017.
However, the rise may be traceable to Aircraft movements’ departure in 2018 as Aircraft traffic departures from Nigeria rose faster in 2018 than the arrivals. A total number of 28,189 Aircraft movements was recorded, compared to 27,772 arrivals into the country in 2018.
Lagos Airport recorded the highest Air passengers’ traffic in 2018, for both domestic and international traffic statistics. Out of 4.05 million international air passengers’ traffic in 2018, Lagos State recorded 2.86 million.
This represents about 68.6% of the air passengers’ traffic in 2018. Followed by Abuja and Port-Harcourt Airports with 1.01 million and 90,192 air passengers’ traffic respectively.
For domestic air passengers’ traffic, Lagos, Abuja and Porthacourt Airports still recorded the highest passengers’ traffic for 2018, while Bauchi, Kebbi and Dutse Airports recorded the lowest international passenger traffic with 9,523, 15,385 and 3,679 respectively.