By Shile GIWA
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said that a total of 17.23 million passengers passed through Nigerian airports in 2018.
The NBS said this in its Air Transportation Data for 2018 posted on its website.
The report said international passengers who passed through the country’s airports reached 4.43 million in 2018 as against 4.05 million passengers in 2017.
This, according to the report, represents 9.42 per cent growth rate.
Similarly, the bureau said the number of domestic passengers who passed through airports reached 12.79 million in 2018 as against 10.38 million passengers in 2017.
It further said that the 2018 figure represented a 23.19 per cent growth rate.
Also, the bureau said aircraft traffic reached 290,328 in the year under review.
It said a total of 55,961 international airliners passed the airports in 2018 as against 40,328 of them recorded in 2017.
According to the NBS, the figure represents a 38.92 per cent growth rate.
The bureau further announced 11.24 per cent growth in the number of domestic flight operations in the airports in 2018.
It said 234,367 domestic flights were recorded in 2018 as against 210,693 in 2017.
It also disclosed a growth of 1.94 per cent in total cargo traffic in 2018 as against 2017.
“There was a 19.96 per cent increase in total mail traffic recorded in 2018 when compared to the same period last year,” the NBS said.
The data in the report was supplied administratively by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, verified and validated by the NBS.
