World - Air transport, passengers carried

The value for Air transport, passengers carried in World was 1,809,389,000 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 50 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 4,557,606,000 in 2019 and a minimum value of 310,441,400 in 1970.

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 310,441,400
1971 331,604,900
1973 401,571,800
1974 421,145,200
1975 432,276,500
1976 471,773,400
1977 513,269,300
1978 576,090,000
1979 648,400,600
1980 641,872,900
1981 640,619,400
1982 654,482,100
1983 685,101,600
1984 732,410,300
1985 783,198,100
1986 842,594,300
1987 904,838,100
1988 953,896,000
1989 983,208,800
1990 1,024,977,000
1991 1,133,228,000
1992 1,145,437,000
1993 1,142,265,000
1994 1,233,233,000
1995 1,302,892,000
1996 1,390,964,000
1997 1,455,104,000
1998 1,466,962,000
1999 1,562,256,000
2000 1,674,065,000
2001 1,655,230,000
2002 1,627,405,000
2003 1,665,309,000
2004 1,888,695,000
2005 1,969,591,000
2006 2,072,414,000
2007 2,209,136,000
2008 2,208,219,000
2009 2,249,729,000
2010 2,628,261,000
2011 2,786,954,000
2012 2,894,055,000
2013 3,048,275,000
2014 3,227,291,000
2015 3,466,479,000
2016 3,705,102,000
2017 3,973,790,000
2018 4,242,448,000
2019 4,557,606,000
2020 1,809,389,000

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