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.
ATB - Division for environmental and territorial networks
1.3. Contact name
Confidential because of GDPR
1.4. Contact person function
Confidential because of GDPR
1.5. Contact mail address
Viale Liegi, 13 00198 Rome Italy
1.6. Contact email address
Confidential because of GDPR
1.7. Contact phone number
Confidential because of GDPR
1.8. Contact fax number
2.1. Metadata last certified
4 December 2024
2.2. Metadata last posted
4 December 2024
2.3. Metadata last update
4 December 2024
3.1. Data description
The new statistical survey on air transport is a collection of information on the transport of passengers, cargo and mail per flight. Data are collected on a web platform, for a single flight: the arrival/departure date, the type of flight, the flight stages, the intermediate stopovers and the origins/final destinations, for which adults, children and infant travellers, cargo, mail and the seats available on aircraft are distributed. Reporting units are airports and data are provided by their management companies.
The main topics observed are: Carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air.
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
All commercial flights without State flights.
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
Italy.
3.8. Coverage - Time
All datasets have been provided according to the legal act starting from 2003 year Regulation (EC) n. 437/2003.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
The units used depend on the variables collected within each data set and are: number of passengers, kilogrammes (for freight and mail), aircraft movements and passenger seats available.
According to the legal act the weight of freight and mail is transmitted in tonnes without decimal places.
Reference period is the calendar year 2023.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
National level:
The Air Transport survey is included in National Statistical Programme yearly approved by a Republic Presidential decree. Code: IST-00145.
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:
Several national legal acts guarantee the confidentiality of data requested for statistical purposes. In Italy, according to art. 9, paragraph 1 of the Legislative Decree n. 322 of 1989 (concerning the statistical system), statistical data cannot be disseminated but in aggregated form, in order to make it impossible to identify the person to whom the information relates. The data collected can only be used for statistical purposes.
Official statistics must also safeguard the rights, basic freedoms, and dignity of respondents, in particular with regard to the right of confidentiality and personal identity.
ISTAT assures the protection of personal data according to the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, repealing Directive 95/46/EC) and, as national legislation, Italian Data Protection Code (Legislative Decree no. 196/2003) and Code of conduct and professional practice applying to the processing of personal data for statistical and scientific research purposes within the framework of the national statistical system.
In order to make statistical secrecy and protection of personal data effective, ISTAT is currently taking appropriate organizational, logistical, methodological and statistical measures in accordance with internationally established standards.
Moreover, Legislative Decree n. 322 of 1989, art. 6 and 6 bis provides that the exchange of microdata and personal data within the National Statistical System (Sistan) is possible if it is necessary to fulfil requirements provided by the National Statistical Programme.
Finally, in implementation of art. 5-ter of the legislative decree 14 March 2013, no. 33, the new "Guidelines for the access for scientific purposes to the elementary data of the National Statistical System" establish the conditions under which the bodies and offices of the National Statistical System can allow researchers to access their own elementary data for scientific purposes.
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.
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.
Data confidentiality problems:
Only the airline information data is subject to confidentiality.
8.1. Release calendar
Every year, in December, ISTAT publishes a release calendar providing the exact dates for press releases for the coming year. The calendar is distributed to the press and is available free of charge to interested parties. Statistical information is published in accordance with an approved release calendar.
8.2. Release calendar access
Press releases are issued according to a calendar. The calendar is available on the website (Calendar).
8.3. Release policy - user access
According to its mission, ISTAT disseminates statistical information in order to make it accessible and usable to everyone and to remove any barriers to the use of data. All data releases are posted on ISTAT website on the basis, as regards press releases with short-term data and annual data of strong interest for the country, of an annual release calendar set and published in the December preceding the reference year. Time series are available on Istat website data warehouse and users can choose information according to their needs, building customised tables or downloading prepackaged datasets. Data are always accompanied by meta-information - methodologies, classifications, definitions. Microdata files are released free of charge and in compliance with the principle of statistical secrecy and data protection. Books, press releases, datasets and infographics are also available on ISTAT web site; moreover main contents are disseminated through ISTAT Official Twitter account and other social networks. All ISTAT information are available free of charge and data are reusable providing the source.
Air transport statistics are published monthly 90 days (3 months) after the reference month with being preliminary until publishing the annual results.
The survey methodology implements the EU regulation 437/2003.
Recently, ISTAT asked variables using an IT platform called GINO (Gathered INformation Online). From 2022 data, other variables to manage Unknown codes were requested, mantaining: code of commercial flight, Date/Hour, ICAO Origin/Final Destination, ICAO First stop, ICAO Second stop, ICAO Third stop, New Type of service: Scheduled, Charter for passengers and freight, General Aviation (Total), Deviated flight, Technical stops, Arriving/Departing Adults, Childs and Infants, per Origin/Destination and stops and freight per O/D and stops and mail per O/D and stops.
Errors and Missing data:
Improving harmonization on units and/or variables (Total passengers = Adults + Children + Infant); Distinguishing a systematic error from a random one, Mirror checks (following slides...), Missing values within Record Linkage (on Transits, on some minor airports, on Flights);
Survey data to integrate missing on Transit;
Record Linkage;
Mirror checks to improve quality.
10.7. Quality management - documentation
The ISTAT Information system on quality of statistical production processes SIQual (http://siqual.istat.it/SIQual/lang.do?language=UK) contains information on the execution on ISTAT statistical production processes and on activities developed to guarantee quality of the produced statistical information. For Details plesae see the ISTAT website.
11.1. Quality assurance
Since the 90s ISTAT has adopted a systematic approach to ensure the quality of statistical information and of its services to the community (see the Work done).
With the aim of strengthening the commitment to quality, in 2020 ISTAT set up the Quality Committee, for overseeing all quality initiatives in the Statistical Institute. In addition the role of Quality Manager was formally established.
In 2021 a new quality policy for statistical production was adopted. It is consistent with the European quality framework developed by Eurostat, and transposes its main principles and definitions.
Transport Department, Universities in the world, air companies (Ryanair, Alitalia, etc..), Assaeroporti as external bodies, ENAC (National Civil Aviation Organization);
National Account and consuption prices index sectors of ISTAT.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
ISTAT is constantly interested in understanding who the users of the statistics it produces are, what the information needs are, whether they match production and if the statistics produced satisfy users. To this aim, together with the analysis of user requests received through the Web Contact Center service, tools for direct consultation were developed, such as the annual online survey of customer satisfaction and indirect tools such as analysis of accesses and of users' browsing paths on the web site.
12.3. Completeness
Datasets A1 and B1- possibility to identify the true first origin/ final destination of a passenger:
They are included in dataset B1, since 2019 data.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
Maximum.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable for air transport data collection.
13.3. Non-sampling error
The quality actions to control unit nonresponse are:
Telephone follow-ups;
Special care in writing clear instructions to fill-in questionnaires.
The quality actions to control the sources of processing error (data entry, coding, editing and imputation) are:
Evaluation of editing and imputation impact on final estimates;
Evaluation of types of errors (item nonresponse, systematic errors, random errors, outliers);
Supervising activities of operators in charge of editing and imputation;
Evaluation of editing and imputation impact on microdata;
Training of airport operators;
Storage of raw data.
Editing and imputation procedures are used to correct for item nonresponse and measurement errors Data are validated to the following actions:
Coherence control with data from other surveys or sources;
Coherence control with previous data of the same surve.
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.
Difficulties to respect deadline for data transmission:
We now respect T+3 months.
14.2. Punctuality
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are transmitted to Eurostat within the deadline set up by the legal act and without delays.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
Georeferencing air routes.
15.2. Comparability - over time
Length of comparable time series:
aircraft movements - from Q1 2003 to today;
carriage of passengers - from Q1 2003 to today.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Yes with an informatic application.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Yes with an informatic application.
About costs, we haven't external services, so our costs are internal. The survey will have 2 human resources in 2025. The burden is the greater than in previous years, due to fewer human resources per year.
17.1. Data revision - policy
Not applicable.
17.2. Data revision - practice
Not applicable.
18.1. Source data
Seats information in A1: technical data from airports.
Datasets A1 and B1 - Use of Air Waybill Data as information source of freight data: NO.
Since 2019 the airport provides ISTAT individual flights per month by date, movement, type of service, airline, aircraft, available seats, passengers carried, direct transit, cargo and mail carried.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Frequency of data collection is Monthly.
18.3. Data collection
Airports transmit all data to ISTAT by uploading datasets on GINO (Gathering INformation Online), a System for the collection (upload) of data on line.
18.4. Data validation
Data validation procedure :
Interactive corrections (wrong codes…);
Consistency between Arrival and Departure;
Comparison between dataset A1, B1 and C1 etc.
Description of consistency checks:
No information available.
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 transcodification.
Problems on data compilation, validation and delivery: Not too much.
18.6. Adjustment
Not applicable for air transport data collection.
No further comments.
The new statistical survey on air transport is a collection of information on the transport of passengers, cargo and mail per flight. Data are collected on a web platform, for a single flight: the arrival/departure date, the type of flight, the flight stages, the intermediate stopovers and the origins/final destinations, for which adults, children and infant travellers, cargo, mail and the seats available on aircraft are distributed. Reporting units are airports and data are provided by their management companies.
The main topics observed are: Carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air.
4 December 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.
Italy.
Reference period is the calendar year 2023.
Maximum.
The units used depend on the variables collected within each data set and are: number of passengers, kilogrammes (for freight and mail), aircraft movements and passenger seats available.
According to the legal act the weight of freight and mail is transmitted in tonnes without 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 transcodification.
Problems on data compilation, validation and delivery: Not too much.
Seats information in A1: technical data from airports.
Datasets A1 and B1 - Use of Air Waybill Data as information source of freight data: NO.
Since 2019 the airport provides ISTAT individual flights per month by date, movement, type of service, airline, aircraft, available seats, passengers carried, direct transit, cargo and mail carried.
Air transport statistics are published monthly 90 days (3 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.
Difficulties to respect deadline for data transmission:
