Sri Lanka - Air transport, passengers carried

The value for Air transport, passengers carried in Sri Lanka was 1,240,391 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 50 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 5,882,376 in 2018 and a minimum value of 100,000 in 1978.

Definition: Air passengers carried include both domestic and international aircraft passengers of air carriers registered in the country.

Source: International Civil Aviation Organization, Civil Aviation Statistics of the World and ICAO staff estimates.

See also:

Year Value
1970 104,600
1971 116,000
1972 116,000
1973 108,500
1974 107,700
1975 117,300
1976 127,700
1977 181,000
1978 100,000
1979 105,300
1980 235,000
1981 405,200
1982 572,700
1983 616,500
1984 681,300
1985 698,600
1986 611,400
1987 586,900
1988 694,300
1989 744,500
1990 891,800
1991 892,700
1992 1,045,600
1993 993,800
1994 1,066,800
1995 1,155,700
1996 1,170,700
1997 1,231,900
1998 1,212,500
1999 1,421,500
2000 1,755,567
2001 1,718,331
2002 1,740,807
2003 1,957,606
2004 2,412,889
2005 2,817,778
2006 3,100,832
2007 3,206,766
2008 2,951,506
2009 2,417,713
2010 3,008,323
2011 3,665,394
2012 4,616,417
2013 4,793,394
2014 4,756,131
2015 4,911,730
2016 5,284,585
2017 5,403,577
2018 5,882,376
2019 5,582,446
2020 1,240,391

Development Relevance: Transport infrastructure - highways, railways, ports and waterways, and airports and air traffic control systems - and the services that flow from it are crucial to the activities of households, producers, and governments. Because performance indicators vary widely by transport mode and focus (whether physical infrastructure or the services flowing from that infrastructure), highly specialized and carefully specified indicators are required to measure a country's transport infrastructure. The air transport industry a vital engine of global socio-economic growth. It is of vital importance for economic development, creating direct and indirect employment, supporting tourism and local businesses, and stimulating foreign investment and international trade. Economic growth, technological change, market liberalization, the growth of low cost carriers, airport congestion, oil prices and other trends affect commercial aviation throughout the world.

Limitations and Exceptions: The air transport data represent the total (international and domestic) scheduled traffic carried by the air carriers registered in a country. Countries submit air transport data to International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on the basis of standard instructions and definitions issued by ICAO. In many cases, however, the data include estimates by ICAO for nonreporting carriers. Where possible, these estimates are based on previous submissions supplemented by information published by the air carriers, such as flight schedules. The data cover the air traffic carried on scheduled services, but changes in air transport regulations in Europe have made it more difficult to classify traffic as scheduled or nonscheduled. Thus recent increases shown for some European countries may be due to changes in the classification of air traffic rather than actual growth. In the case of multinational air carriers owned by partner States, traffic within each partner State is shown separately as domestic and all other traffic as international. "Foreign" cabotage traffic (i.e. traffic carried between city-pairs in a State other than the one where the reporting carrier has its principal place of business) is shown as international traffic. A technical stop does not result in any flight stage being classified differently than would have been the case had the technical stop not been made. For countries with few air carriers or only one, the addition or discontinuation of a home-based air carrier may cause significant changes in air traffic. Data for transport sectors are not always internationally comparable. Unlike for demographic statistics, national income accounts, and international trade data, the collection of infrastructure data has not been "internationalized."

Statistical Concept and Methodology: For statistical uses, departures are equal to the number of landings made or flight stages flown. A flight stage is the operation of an aircraft from take-off to its next landing. A flight stage is classified as either international or domestic. International flight stage is one or both terminals in the territory of a State, other than the State in which the air carrier has its principal place of business. Domestic flight stage is not classifiable as international. Domestic flight stages include all flight stages flown between points within the domestic boundaries of a State by an air carrier whose principal place of business is in that State. Flight stages between a State and territories belonging to it, as well as any flight stages between two such territories, should be classified as domestic. This applies even though a stage may cross international waters or over the territory of another State. The number of passengers carried is obtained by counting each passenger on a particular flight (with one flight number) once only and not repeatedly on each individual stage of that flight, with a single exception that a passenger flying on both the international and domestic stages of the same flight should be counted as both a domestic and an international passenger.

Aggregation method: Sum

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Infrastructure Indicators

Sub-Topic: Transportation