Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
Three data sets required by the Regulation – A1, B1 and C1 – are provided to Eurostat:
Dataset A1 - Flight Stage dataset: periodic flight stage data registered for airport-to-airport routes, and broken down by arrivals/departures, scheduled/non-scheduled, passenger service/all-freight and mail service, airline information and aircraft type. The values provided concern passengers on board, freight and mail on board, commercial air flights as well as passenger seats available.
Dataset B1 - On Flight Origin/Destination dataset: periodic on flight origin/destination data registered for airport-to-airport routes, and broken down by arrivals/departures, scheduled/non scheduled, passenger service/all-freight and mail service and airline information. The values provided concern passengers carried and freight and mail loaded or unloaded.
Dataset C1 - Airport dataset: periodic airport data registered for declaring airports, and broken down by airline information. The values provided concern total passengers carried, total direct transit passengers, total transfer (indirect transit) passengers (optional variable), total freight and mail loaded or unloaded, total commercial aircraft movements and total aircraft movements.
Dataset A1: Aggregated in individual Flight level. Kept since the beginning of statistic (1984). Dataset B1: Aggregated in individual Flight level. Kept since the beginning of statistic (1984). For stream flights. Aggregate in Passengers level. Kept until the beginning of statistic (2001). Aggregated in individual Flight level. Kept since the beginning of statistic (1984).
3.2. Classification system
Airports are classified according to ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) airport coded as listed in ICAO document 7910.
Aircrafts are classified according to aggregated aircraft categories based on the ICAO aircraft codes as listed in ICAO document 8643.
Airlines are classified according to the ICAO airline codes as listed in the ICAO document 8585. When providing the data to Eurostat, the region where they are licensed is coded accordingly either as European Union (EU) or outside the European Union (non-EU).
3.3. Coverage - sector
Air transport - commercial air services and civil aircraft movements for the airports with traffic in excess of 15 000 passenger units annually.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
The main concepts used in this domain are the following:
Community airport - adefined area on land or water in a Member State subject to the provisions of the treaty, which is intended to be used either wholly or in part for the arrival, departure and surface movement of aircraft and open for commercial air services.
Flight stage - the operation of an aircraft from take-off to its next landing. This is linked to the definition of passengers (or freight and mail) on board.
Passengers on board - all passengers on board of the aircraft upon landing at the reporting airport or at taking off from the reporting airport. All revenue and non-revenue passengers on board an aircraft during a flight stage. Includes direct transit passengers (counted at arrivals and departures).
Direct transit passengers - passengers who, after a short stop, continue their journey on the same aircraft on a flight having the same flight number as the flight on which they arrive.
Transfer of indirect transit passengers - passengers arriving and departing on a different aircraft within 24 hours, or on the same aircraft bearing different flight numbers. They are counted twice: once upon arrival and once on departure.
Freight and mail on board - all freight and mail on board of the aircraft upon landing at the reporting airport or at taking off from the reporting airport. All freight and mail on board an aircraft during a flight stage. Includes direct transit freight and mail (counted at arrivals and departures). Includes express services and diplomatic bags. Excludes passenger baggage.
On flight origin and destination - traffic on a commercial air service identified by a unique flight number subdivided by airport pairs in accordance with point of embarkation and point of disembarkation on that flight. For passengers, freight or mail where the airport of embarkation is not known, the aircraft origin should be deemed to be the point of embarkation; similarly, if the airport of disembarkation is not known, the aircraft destination should be deemed to be the point of disembarkation. This is linked to the definition of passengers carried and freight and mail loaded or unloaded.
Passengers carried - all passengers on a specific flight (with one flight number) counted once only and not repeatedly on each individual stage of that flight. All revenue and non-revenue passengers whose journey begin or terminates at the reporting airport and transfer passengers joining or leaving the flight at the reporting airport. Excludes direct transit passengers.
Freight and mail loaded or unloaded - all freight and mail loaded onto or unloaded from an aircraft. Includes express services and diplomatic bags. Excludes passenger baggage. Excludes direct transit freight and mail.
Passenger unit - one passenger unit is equivalent to either one passenger or 100 kilograms of freight and mail.
3.5. Statistical unit
The data are collected at individual airport level.
3.6. Statistical population
Four categories of Community airports are defined by the Regulation (EC) N°1358/2003:
Category "0": Airports with less than 15 000 passenger units per year are considered as having only "occasional commercial traffic" without obligation to report.
Category "1": Airports with between 15 000 and 150 000 passenger units per year shall transmit only aggregated airport data (Data set C).
Category "2": Airports with more than 150 000 passenger units and less than 1 500 000 passenger units per year shall transmit flight stage data, on flight origin destination data as well as aggregated airport data (Data sets A, B and C).
Category "3": Airports with at least 1 500 000 passenger units per year shall transmit flight stage data, on flight origin destination data as well as aggregated airport data (Data sets A, B and C).
Airports under category ‘0’ are not included in the statistics provided to Eurostat.
3.7. Reference area
Commercial airports located on the territory of Switzerland.
3.8. Coverage - Time
Monthly data on passengers carried, passengers on-board, freight and mail on-board, freight and mail carried as well as number of commercial passenger and freight filghts are available as from 1993. Transfer passenger data (annual) provided for the biggest airports as from 2012.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
The units used depend on the variables collected within each data set and are: number of passengers, tonnes, flights, aircraft movements and passenger seats available.
According to the legal act the weight of freight and mail is transmitted in tonnes with three decimal places.
Reference year is the calandar year for dataset C1 and the calendar month for datasets A1 and B1.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
European level: until 2002, the data were provided to Eurostat on a voluntary basis; since 2002 data provision is based on an EP and Council framework legal act and on several implementing Commission Regulations:
See Bundesstatistikgesetz vom 9. Oktober 1992 (BStatG).
European level:
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.
The data provided to Eurostat in the data sets A1, B1 and C1 contain no confidential information.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
The procedures with regard to statistical confidentiality folllows the Federal Statistics Act.
Only the airline information data is subject to confidentiality. Before providing the data to Eurostat, the region where they are licensed is coded accordingly either as European Union (EU) or outside the European Union (non-EU).
The data provided to Eurostat in the data sets A1, B1 and C1 contain no confidential information.
Release calender for national data (publication) can be seen in www.bfs,admin.ch (AGENDA). These dates are more or less the dates EUROSTAT receives the data.
Air transport statistics are published monthly 120 days (four months) after the reference month with being preliminary until publishing the annual results.
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
For national statistics Excel-Files in theme 11 Mobility and transport, civil aviation. Please see the BFS website.
10.2. Dissemination format - Publications
For national statistics Excel-Files in theme 11 Mobility and transport, civil aviation. Please see the BFS website.
10.3. Dissemination format - online database
Excel-files all three months and data in stat-tab (monthly numbers abut movements and passengers (see this website).
10.4. Dissemination format - microdata access
Not applicable to air transport statistics.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
No comment.
10.6. Documentation on methodology
The methodology followed is based on the reference manual on air transport statistics 2021.
All published tables/numbers controlled by responsable service in Federal office for cicil aviation (BAZL).
11.1. Quality assurance
All tables/results are checked by data owner (Federal office of civil aviation).
11.2. Quality management - assessment
Implementation and compliance with the SDMX standards:
No information available.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
It seems to satisfy most parts of users needs.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
No general negativ reactions from users.
12.3. Completeness
Datasets A1 and B1- possibility to identify the true first origin/ final destination of a passenger:
If the passenger flies away from Switzerland, we know that it is his first airport. Either we had one airport before the Swiss airport and two airports after the Swiss airport.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
Administrative data (survey at the airports by BAZL).
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable for air transport data collection.
13.3. Non-sampling error
No sampling necessary.
14.1. Timeliness
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are transmitted to Eurostat 4 months after the reference quarter.
14.2. Punctuality
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are available 2 months before the deadline for the data provisions set up in the legal act.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
Regular national checks before publication (by time, airports) and checks by EUROSTAT.
15.2. Comparability - over time
Regular national checks before publication (by time, airports) and checks by EUROSTAT.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
No comment.
15.4. Coherence - internal
No comment.
No comment.
17.1. Data revision - policy
No policy.
17.2. Data revision - practice
If necessary.
18.1. Source data
Dataset A1 – Data Suppliers (Passengers on board/Freight and mail on board): Airports.
Aircraft Information in A1: The aircraft types are reported by the airports.
Seats information information in A1: The airports announce the number of available seats. If missing, we take the number of seats available for this aircraft type.
Dataset B1 –Data Suppliers (Passengers carried/Freight and mail loaded/unloaded): Airport for direct flight, airlines and airport for traffic streams.
Datasets A1 and B1 - Use of Air Waybill Data as information source of freight data: No freight transported by truck in our data.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the direct transit information to the CNA: Collected by airport and transmitted by airport.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the commercial and total aircraft movement to the CNA: Collected by airport and transmitted by airport. (For line and charter flights by control tower else by listing from pilots).
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Data collected monthly by "Federal office of civil aviation" (Bundesamt für Zivililuftfahrt).
18.3. Data collection
Dataset A1 – Data supplier’s information sources( Passengers on board/ Freight and mail on board): Electronic from Airport for direct Flight.
Dataset A1 – Data transmission to CNA – level of aggregation, system and periodicity (Passengers on board/ Freight and mail on board) : Aggregated in individual Flight level. Transmitted by e-mail monthly (airports with line and Charter flight).
Dataset B1 – Data supplier’s information sources (Passengers carried/ Freight and mail loaded/unloaded): Electronic from Airport for direct Flight, Telex reading from airlines and electronic from airport for traffic streams.Freight-system Carido.
Dataset B1 – Data transmission to CNA – level of aggregation, system and periodicity(Passengers carried/ Freight and mail loaded/unloaded): Aggregated in individual Flight level (direct flight). Transmitted by e-mail monthly (airports with line and Charter flight).For stream flights. Aggregate in Passengers level.Aggregated in individual Flight level (direct flight). Transmitted by e-mail monthly (airports with line and Charter flight).
Datasets A1 and B1 - OFOD data derived from FS data or collected separately by the data supplier: No information available.
Implementation of the data collection and compilation process: Straightforward.
18.4. Data validation
Data validation procedure :
The data are read with SAS (statistic program). If we know that the data are systematically false (for example, GMT time instead of local time) then the data are adapted before being imported in Adabas (Database, Natural). After that the correctness of the data is tested (Airline code, airport code, date, time,).
Description of consistency checks :
At the beginning of statistics the records were controlled with the help of fly plans. After two years, because there were no differences, this control was abandoned.
There is actually no more such tests.
18.5. Data compilation
After various plausibility checks, the data received from the airports are compiled into monthly data following the structure of the data sets which are preset by regulation (EC) 1358/2003.
Data codification practices: No.
Problems on data compilation, validation and delivery: None.
18.6. Adjustment
Not applicable for air transport data collection.
No comment.
Dataset A1 and B1- data storage
Three data sets required by the Regulation – A1, B1 and C1 – are provided to Eurostat:
Dataset A1 - Flight Stage dataset: periodic flight stage data registered for airport-to-airport routes, and broken down by arrivals/departures, scheduled/non-scheduled, passenger service/all-freight and mail service, airline information and aircraft type. The values provided concern passengers on board, freight and mail on board, commercial air flights as well as passenger seats available.
Dataset B1 - On Flight Origin/Destination dataset: periodic on flight origin/destination data registered for airport-to-airport routes, and broken down by arrivals/departures, scheduled/non scheduled, passenger service/all-freight and mail service and airline information. The values provided concern passengers carried and freight and mail loaded or unloaded.
Dataset C1 - Airport dataset: periodic airport data registered for declaring airports, and broken down by airline information. The values provided concern total passengers carried, total direct transit passengers, total transfer (indirect transit) passengers (optional variable), total freight and mail loaded or unloaded, total commercial aircraft movements and total aircraft movements.
Dataset A1: Aggregated in individual Flight level. Kept since the beginning of statistic (1984). Dataset B1: Aggregated in individual Flight level. Kept since the beginning of statistic (1984). For stream flights. Aggregate in Passengers level. Kept until the beginning of statistic (2001). Aggregated in individual Flight level. Kept since the beginning of statistic (1984).
26 November 2024
The main concepts used in this domain are the following:
Community airport - adefined area on land or water in a Member State subject to the provisions of the treaty, which is intended to be used either wholly or in part for the arrival, departure and surface movement of aircraft and open for commercial air services.
Flight stage - the operation of an aircraft from take-off to its next landing. This is linked to the definition of passengers (or freight and mail) on board.
Passengers on board - all passengers on board of the aircraft upon landing at the reporting airport or at taking off from the reporting airport. All revenue and non-revenue passengers on board an aircraft during a flight stage. Includes direct transit passengers (counted at arrivals and departures).
Direct transit passengers - passengers who, after a short stop, continue their journey on the same aircraft on a flight having the same flight number as the flight on which they arrive.
Transfer of indirect transit passengers - passengers arriving and departing on a different aircraft within 24 hours, or on the same aircraft bearing different flight numbers. They are counted twice: once upon arrival and once on departure.
Freight and mail on board - all freight and mail on board of the aircraft upon landing at the reporting airport or at taking off from the reporting airport. All freight and mail on board an aircraft during a flight stage. Includes direct transit freight and mail (counted at arrivals and departures). Includes express services and diplomatic bags. Excludes passenger baggage.
On flight origin and destination - traffic on a commercial air service identified by a unique flight number subdivided by airport pairs in accordance with point of embarkation and point of disembarkation on that flight. For passengers, freight or mail where the airport of embarkation is not known, the aircraft origin should be deemed to be the point of embarkation; similarly, if the airport of disembarkation is not known, the aircraft destination should be deemed to be the point of disembarkation. This is linked to the definition of passengers carried and freight and mail loaded or unloaded.
Passengers carried - all passengers on a specific flight (with one flight number) counted once only and not repeatedly on each individual stage of that flight. All revenue and non-revenue passengers whose journey begin or terminates at the reporting airport and transfer passengers joining or leaving the flight at the reporting airport. Excludes direct transit passengers.
Freight and mail loaded or unloaded - all freight and mail loaded onto or unloaded from an aircraft. Includes express services and diplomatic bags. Excludes passenger baggage. Excludes direct transit freight and mail.
Passenger unit - one passenger unit is equivalent to either one passenger or 100 kilograms of freight and mail.
The data are collected at individual airport level.
Four categories of Community airports are defined by the Regulation (EC) N°1358/2003:
Category "0": Airports with less than 15 000 passenger units per year are considered as having only "occasional commercial traffic" without obligation to report.
Category "1": Airports with between 15 000 and 150 000 passenger units per year shall transmit only aggregated airport data (Data set C).
Category "2": Airports with more than 150 000 passenger units and less than 1 500 000 passenger units per year shall transmit flight stage data, on flight origin destination data as well as aggregated airport data (Data sets A, B and C).
Category "3": Airports with at least 1 500 000 passenger units per year shall transmit flight stage data, on flight origin destination data as well as aggregated airport data (Data sets A, B and C).
Airports under category ‘0’ are not included in the statistics provided to Eurostat.
Commercial airports located on the territory of Switzerland.
Reference year is the calandar year for dataset C1 and the calendar month for datasets A1 and B1.
Administrative data (survey at the airports by BAZL).
The units used depend on the variables collected within each data set and are: number of passengers, tonnes, flights, aircraft movements and passenger seats available.
According to the legal act the weight of freight and mail is transmitted in tonnes with three decimal places.
After various plausibility checks, the data received from the airports are compiled into monthly data following the structure of the data sets which are preset by regulation (EC) 1358/2003.
Data codification practices: No.
Problems on data compilation, validation and delivery: None.
Dataset A1 – Data Suppliers (Passengers on board/Freight and mail on board): Airports.
Aircraft Information in A1: The aircraft types are reported by the airports.
Seats information information in A1: The airports announce the number of available seats. If missing, we take the number of seats available for this aircraft type.
Dataset B1 –Data Suppliers (Passengers carried/Freight and mail loaded/unloaded): Airport for direct flight, airlines and airport for traffic streams.
Datasets A1 and B1 - Use of Air Waybill Data as information source of freight data: No freight transported by truck in our data.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the direct transit information to the CNA: Collected by airport and transmitted by airport.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the commercial and total aircraft movement to the CNA: Collected by airport and transmitted by airport. (For line and charter flights by control tower else by listing from pilots).
Air transport statistics are published monthly 120 days (four months) after the reference month with being preliminary until publishing the annual results.
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are transmitted to Eurostat 4 months after the reference quarter.
Regular national checks before publication (by time, airports) and checks by EUROSTAT.
Regular national checks before publication (by time, airports) and checks by EUROSTAT.
