Nigeria has recorded a decline in the number of passengers travelling into the country, driven by lower number of internationally travelling passengers, which declined by 27.93 per cent.
This is contained in the Nigerian Aviation Sector Summary Report for second quarter of 2015 released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday in Abuja.
The report said that the second quarter saw decline in number of passengers from 406, 369 passengers in the first quarter to 1,048,598 passengers in the second quarter.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the aviation data used in the report were obtained from the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
Variables include the number of passengers carried on domestic and international flights by airport, aircraft movements and the weight of cargo and post carried.
According to the report, domestic travel shows a marginal rise “quarter on quarter’’, with 16,752 or 0.71 per cent more passengers travelling in the second quarter.
The report said that the resultant 2,374,479 domestically bound passengers represented 69.37 per cent of the total number of passengers.
It said that the total number of passengers was up by 7. 53 per cent points from the preceding quarter, yet down by 1.35 per cent point from the second quarter of 2014.
“Year on year’’, the report said, both domestic and international passenger numbers were lower, with 73,492 or 6.55 per cent fewer than international passengers.
The report said that the numbers of international passengers were 335,908 or 12.39 per cent fewer than domestic passengers relative to the corresponding quarter of the preceding year.
It said that Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos recorded highest number of domestic passengers, followed by the Abuja airports.
“Murtala Muhammed Airport continued to dominate domestic passenger travel in the quarter, with the 936,029 passengers representing 39.42 per cent of the second quarter.
“Despite still recording passenger numbers lower than in second quarter of 2014, with year on year growth of 70,758 passengers or 7.03 per cent, quarterly numbers were up with a rise of 39,505 passengers or 4.41 per cent from the preceding quarter,’’ it said.
On the other hand, the report said that Abuja airport, with the second greatest portion of second quarter domestic passenger traffic at 33.15 per cent of the total, showed a similar trend.
“The 787,067 domestically bound passengers travelling through the airport in second quarter represented a decline of 58,176 passengers or 6.88 per cent year on year.
“ Yet a rise of 22,698 passengers or 2.97 per cent from the preceding quarter,’’ the report said.
In addition, the report said that the only airports to record positive year on year growth were Katsina, increasing by 668 passengers or 319.62 per cent.
It said that Katsina was followed by Owerri, which increased by 9,243 passengers or 11.12 per cent and Yola, increasing by 1,121 passengers or 3.09 per cent.
“The greatest quarterly passenger growth was recorded for Ibadan airport, in which an additional 10,249 or 222.09 per cent more passengers travelled in second quarter against quarter one, increasing the total from 4,615 to 14,864 passengers,’’ the report added.