There is an increase in number of passengers that passed through the airports in Nigeria despite recession while that of aircraft that landed in the country decreased in 2016

|  By Anayo Ezugwu  |  Apr 17, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT  |

AIRPORTS in Nigeria in 2016 recorded a decline in the number of aircraft that landed in and departed from them. The output in the air transport sector, as well as its contribution to GDP, also declined in 2016. According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, NBS, several airlines had operational issues, and either cut back on services provided or stopped operations entirely.

In real terms, output in this sector declined by 4.9 percent between 2015 and 2016, with the largest year-on-year fall recorded in the final quarter which is 13.3 percent. However, despite the recession which may have been expected to reduce demand for travel, the number of passengers using most airports increased. The fall in output was likely to be more a reflection of increased costs of operations, rather than decreased demand.

The NBS stated that Murtala Muhammed Airport, MMA, in Lagos, recorded most of the activity, and accounted for 34.2 percent of domestic passengers, 69.1 percent of international passengers, 91.7 percent of cargo movement and 76.9 percent of mail movement.

In 2016, the total number of passengers to pass through Nigerian airports was 15,232,597. Of these, 72.0 percent were domestic passengers, travelling within Nigeria, and the remaining 28.0 percent were international, entering or leaving the country. Between 2015 and 2016 the number of passengers recorded by the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, has increased by 6.3 percent.

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 percent of the total. Excluding these from the comparison with 2015, reveals that between these two years, total passenger traffic increased by 1.6 percent for those airports included in both years.

In both the third and final quarters of 2016, there was a quarterly decline in the number of passengers travelling through Nigerian airports. Between the second and third quarters, the number fell by 1.0 percent from 3,900,649 to 3,861,252. However, in the final quarter the fall was more pronounced; the number fell by 5.6 percent to reach 3,644,844. This contrasts with both 2015, in which the number of passengers increased slightly between the third and fourth quarters by 0.9 percent and 2014, in which there was growth of 5.9 percent in the number of passengers between the same two quarters.

These totals hide differing trends in the total number of domestic and international passengers. The number of domestic passengers fell between the second and third quarters by 6.4 percent, from 2,864,072 to 2,681,693. In the final quarter, the number fell again by 1.6 percent to reach 2,637,975. However, there was a large spike in international passengers in the third quarter: the number increased by 13.8 percent, from 1,036,577 to 1,179,559, before falling back by 14.6 percent in the final quarter to reach 1,006,869.

According to the NBS, due to the small number of international passengers relative to domestic passengers, the latter had a larger impact on total movements in passenger numbers in the third quarter. It noted that in the fourth quarter this reversed, with the drop in international passenger numbers contributing 4.5 percent points of the 5.6 percent drop in total passengers, or roughly 80 percent. The NBS said this spike in the third quarter for international travel may be part of a seasonal pattern: 2014 and 2015 also recorded spikes in the number of international travelers in the third quarter.

When comparing airports for which information is available for both 2015 and 2016, there was an increase in domestic passenger numbers between these years, of 2.3 percent. However, the first and second halves of the year differed substantially: whereas year-on-year growth in domestic passenger numbers of 9.7 percent and 10.3 percent were recorded in the first two quarters, respectively, declines of 1.3 percent and 8.2 percent were recorded in the third and fourth quarters.

Due to their size, most of this decline was accounted for by Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt, and in both quarters, Abuja accounted for the largest fall. MMA in Lagos remained the busiest domestic airport in the third and final quarters of 2016, and this airport accounted for 891,770 passengers in the third and 909,851 passengers in the final quarter. This represented 33.3 percent and 34.5 percent, respectively. The share of domestic passengers accounted for by MMA remained broadly stable throughout 2016, with the highest share recorded in the first quarter of 34.6 percent, and the lowest recorded in the third quarter. As with the overall number of domestic passengers, the number to travel though MMA declined relative to the corresponding values in 2015.

In the third quarter, MMA airport recorded a year-on-year decline of 7.3 percent, compared to an overall decline in domestic passenger numbers of 1.3 percent (when comparing same set of airports) and in the fourth, this fell slightly to a decline of 7.5 percent, although this was a smaller contraction than in the overall fall of 8.2 percent.

Similarly, the share of passengers accounted for by Abuja Airport, the second busiest airport in 2016, remained between 30 percent and 31 percent in each quarter of 2016. In the third and fourth quarters, there were 822,702 and 810,410 domestic passengers to travel through Abuja, respectively. In each quarter this was equivalent to 30.7 percent of the total number, which is higher than the shares in the first and second quarter of 30.4 percent and 30.2 percent. Abuja was the airport to record the largest year-on-year reduction in domestic passengers in absolute terms in each of the third and fourth quarters.

In the third quarter of 2016, there were 81,270 less domestic passengers to travel through than in the same quarter of 2015, a reduction of 9.0 percent. In the fourth quarter, the year-on-year drop fell to 110,005, equivalent to a 12.0 percent fall.

The third busiest domestic airport in 2016 was Port Harcourt, although the number of passengers fell throughout the year. In the first quarter, the number of domestic passengers to travel through this airport was 273,240, but this fell to 258,257 in the second, 233,165 in the third and 209,366 in the final quarter, declines of 5.5 percent, 9.7 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively. Accordingly, this airport’s share fell from 9.8 percent at the start of the year to 7.9 percent in the final quarter.”

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