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.
Department of Business and Enviromental Statistics - Division for Energy, Environment and Transport
1.3. Contact name
Restricted from publication
1.4. Contact person function
Restricted from publication
1.5. Contact mail address
Statistics Norway Postboks 1400 Rasta NO-2225 Kongsvinger
1.6. Contact email address
Restricted from publication
1.7. Contact phone number
Restricted from publication
1.8. Contact fax number
Restricted from publication
2.1. Metadata last certified
20 December 2023
2.2. Metadata last posted
20 December 2023
2.3. Metadata last update
20 December 2023
3.1. Data description
The objective is to describe all commercial transport of passengers and goods in Norway and compile data as to facilitate international comparisons.
The EU requested data from its members starting with 2003. Until January 2009 reporting was done by Avinor but was transferred to Statistics Norway effective calender year 2009.
The survey includes all flights with passenger, freight and mail as well as empty leg flights in domestic and international traffic where the take-off or landing airport is in Norway.
The statistics are compiled and transmitted monthly to Eurostat by the National Statistical Institute of Norway (Statistics Norway). The data collection follows the provisions of the following legal acts:
Commision Regulation 158/2007. Regulation (EC) 219/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council - Article 4.5.
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/nonscheduled, 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.
Data sets A1, B1 and C1 are provided on monthly basis.
Airports handling less than 15 000 passenger units annually are not included in the data sets.
All data sets have been provided according to the legal act (with no derogations) starting from 2003 reference year.
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
National and international commercial airports located on the territory of Norway.
3.8. Coverage - Time
All data sets have been provided according to the legal act (with no derogations) starting from 2003 reference year.
Annual data (collected before the legal act was established) on passenger on board and freight and mail on board are available from 1999.
Transfer passenger data (monthly) provided as from 2013.
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.
The weight of freight and mail is transmitted in tonnes rounded to full numbers.
Reference period is the calendar year 2022.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
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.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
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.
Data confidentiality problems: There are no confidentiality problems in Avinor, as specific airline data is normally removed from the information before further distribution.
No external users have access to the statistics and analyses before they are published and accessible simultaneously for all users on ssb.no at 8 am. Prior to this, a minimum of three months' advance notice is given inthe Statistics Release Calendar. This is one of Statistics Norway’s key principles for ensuring that all users are treated equally.
The results are published monthly about 30 days after the reference month.
The system follows as far as possible the European Statistics Code of practice and Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System, more precisely Principle 4: Commitment to Quality: Quality policy is defined and made available to the public. An organisational structure and tools are in place to deal with quality management.
There are procedures in place to plan, monitor and improve the quality of the statistical processes. Procedures based on quality reporting are in place to internally monitor product quality. Results are analysed regularly and improving actions are undertaken, if needed (for example after obtaining annual summary results and mirror checks reports from Eurostat). There is a regular and thorough review of the key statistical outputs using also external experts where appropriate.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
Data quality can be assessed as high. There is a set of validation rules and quality checks put in place, which detect various types of issues. In case of any issues detected, the data providers are contacted to provide explanations or/and revise the data accordingly. Mirror checks (for national transport) and checks for the consistency over times are prepared and revised as well and the results are compared with the data published by the airports at their website.
Annually, Eurostat provides a data quality report with a summary of the main findings affecting quality as well as showing the solution adopted and the materiality of the existing differences. Mirror checks and checks for the consistency over times are prepared as well.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
The key users of air transport statistics collected according to the Regulation 437/2003 are:
Ministry of Transport
Universities and research institutions
Users involved in the aviation industry (e.g. airlines, airports)
Data of commercial aircraft movements, the routes, numbers of passengers, amount of transported freight and mail as well as seats available provides an impportant basis for decision-making of politics, society and economy in the context of the development and promotion of transport projects.
Users demand for data regarding true origin and destination of the passengers, can not be fullfilled as such information is not collected within the data collection. This information is also not available from the airports.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
There was no user survey especially on air transport statistics data carried out so far but direct feedback from main users like the ministry of transport, universities or aviation companies indicates a good level of satisfaction regarding data coverage and availability.
12.3. Completeness
All the data required by the legal act in place are collected and provided to Eurostat including the optional variable transfer passenger (for the airports which collects such information).
Within the current data collection, it is not possible to identify true first origin/final destination when the journey includes multiple flights. At aggregated level, there is information about number of passengers in transit/transfer.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
Passengers at departure in transfer is known to only include those travellers who continue their journey with the same airline.
Data for the airports Skien (Geiteryggen), Stord (Sørstokken), Ørland and Notodden has not been collected. Published data is extracted from mirror checks from the remaining 48 airports.
Overall accuracy of the air transport statistics data is good. The processing with several plausibilty checks as well as checks done before transmitting data to Eurostat provides a high accuracy of the data. Comparisions with published data by the airports as well as mirror checks for national flights are regularly made and show a high level of comparability.
For Table B1 the on flight origin information of passengers on flights with a unique flight number is not known or provided by the airports. In accordance with the Reference Manual on Air Transport statistics (see 1.4.1 - On flight origin and destination) the aircraft origin is used in that case. This applies also to the on flight origin and destination of freight and mail.
The number of transfer passengers in table C1 refers to the number of transfer passengers on outgoing flights.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable for air transport data collection.
13.3. Non-sampling error
By working closely with the relevant departments of the airports, the various plausibility checks and the legal obligation to cooperate and report the data, misclassifications, under- or over-coverage can be excluded. Moreover, the correctness of the data is of great importance for the airports, since the data serves as basis for billing.
The use of an internal aircraft register for plausibility reasons and the additional use of the classification lists provided by Eurostat prevents a misclassification of aircraft types or partner airports.
14.1. Timeliness
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation (EC) 219/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council - Article 4.5 are transmitted to Eurostat 1 months after the reference month.
14.2. Punctuality
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation (EC) 219/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council - Article 4.5 are available 2 months before the deadline for the data provisions set up in the legal act.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
There are no problems of comparability for air transport data collection with a very high data comparability across contries due to the common legal basis. Comparisions of the data regarding passengers and freight/mail declared by partner reporting airports (so-called mirror checks) by Eurostat allow further the detection of possible inconsistencies which can be corrected if possible.
15.2. Comparability - over time
As from 2009 the statistics on air transport are comparable over time, as they are collected following fully the provisions of the legal act - the Regulation 437/2003. Time series checks are regularly made to detect inconsistencies in the data.
Time series breaks occur in case of airport being closed temporarily (for maintenance, reconstructions, etc.) or in case an airport does not exceed the threshold of 15 000 passenger unit per year (and may be excluded from air transport data provisions). The detailed information on eventual breaks in the time series is provided in the Country Specific Notes (CSNs) available at Eurostat's metadata page (in Annex part).
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Data on airports managed by Avinor is published by Avinor itself www.avinor.no .
Avinor does not include passengers in transit when reporting on passengers at airport.
Comparisons with other transport statistics are only partially and to a limited extent possible with regard to freight transport and passenger transport, since data are currently not available or are not collected at the same level of detail and also different methods and underlying objectives.
15.4. Coherence - internal
The statistics is internally coherent since 2009.
The response burden is put on the airports, but is reduced to a minimum – the data users provide the data automatically via a data interface and are only contacted if plausibility errors cannot be solved.
17.1. Data revision - policy
The results are published at around 30 days after the end of the reference quarter (t+45).
Revision may be required if for example some information on a flight was received too late. Mostly those revisions only concern a small amount of data and do not change the overall results of the already published preliminary data.
17.2. Data revision - practice
The policy described in 17.1 is fully implemented.
18.1. Source data
The air transport data are derived from airports in the form of a survey, which is checked at the NSI and then compiled into the required datasets.
The airports are the source of the following information:
Next/previous airports and on flight origin/destination airport
Flight information – passenger/freight/mail, scheduled/non-scheduled
Airline information
Aircraft type
Number of passengers on board and carried
Freight and mail on board as well as loaded and unloaded
Number of direct transit and transfer passengers
Number of commercial aircraft movements and total aircraft movements.
Moreover, internal registers are used for aircraft characteristics (type, number of seats available).
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Information needed for the data sets A1, B1 and C1 are collected on monthly basis from all reporting airports.
18.3. Data collection
The data for the purpose of the Regulation (EC) 219/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council - Article 4.5 is collected monthly with a CSV-file from the airports. The transmission is possible via a SFTP interface.
18.4. Data validation
Data validation procedure :
The datasets A1, B1 and C1 are aggregated and controlled against monthly press releases published by Avinor. Avinor is contacted if errors are detected in datasets. If the datasets have errors, the CNA are delivered aggregated datasets from each airport.
Description of consistency checks:
If there appear new routes or routes disappear or other changes, Avinor is contacted and the information is checked.
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.
18.6. Adjustment
Not applicable for air transport data collection.
Not applicable.
The objective is to describe all commercial transport of passengers and goods in Norway and compile data as to facilitate international comparisons.
The EU requested data from its members starting with 2003. Until January 2009 reporting was done by Avinor but was transferred to Statistics Norway effective calender year 2009.
The survey includes all flights with passenger, freight and mail as well as empty leg flights in domestic and international traffic where the take-off or landing airport is in Norway.
The statistics are compiled and transmitted monthly to Eurostat by the National Statistical Institute of Norway (Statistics Norway). The data collection follows the provisions of the following legal acts:
Commision Regulation 158/2007. Regulation (EC) 219/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council - Article 4.5.
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/nonscheduled, 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.
Data sets A1, B1 and C1 are provided on monthly basis.
Airports handling less than 15 000 passenger units annually are not included in the data sets.
All data sets have been provided according to the legal act (with no derogations) starting from 2003 reference year.
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.
National and international commercial airports located on the territory of Norway.
Reference period is the calendar year 2022.
Passengers at departure in transfer is known to only include those travellers who continue their journey with the same airline.
Data for the airports Skien (Geiteryggen), Stord (Sørstokken), Ørland and Notodden has not been collected. Published data is extracted from mirror checks from the remaining 48 airports.
Overall accuracy of the air transport statistics data is good. The processing with several plausibilty checks as well as checks done before transmitting data to Eurostat provides a high accuracy of the data. Comparisions with published data by the airports as well as mirror checks for national flights are regularly made and show a high level of comparability.
For Table B1 the on flight origin information of passengers on flights with a unique flight number is not known or provided by the airports. In accordance with the Reference Manual on Air Transport statistics (see 1.4.1 - On flight origin and destination) the aircraft origin is used in that case. This applies also to the on flight origin and destination of freight and mail.
The number of transfer passengers in table C1 refers to the number of transfer passengers on outgoing flights.
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.
The weight of freight and mail is transmitted in tonnes rounded to full numbers.
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.
The air transport data are derived from airports in the form of a survey, which is checked at the NSI and then compiled into the required datasets.
The airports are the source of the following information:
Next/previous airports and on flight origin/destination airport
Flight information – passenger/freight/mail, scheduled/non-scheduled
Airline information
Aircraft type
Number of passengers on board and carried
Freight and mail on board as well as loaded and unloaded
Number of direct transit and transfer passengers
Number of commercial aircraft movements and total aircraft movements.
Moreover, internal registers are used for aircraft characteristics (type, number of seats available).
The results are published monthly about 30 days after the reference month.
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation (EC) 219/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council - Article 4.5 are transmitted to Eurostat 1 months after the reference month.
There are no problems of comparability for air transport data collection with a very high data comparability across contries due to the common legal basis. Comparisions of the data regarding passengers and freight/mail declared by partner reporting airports (so-called mirror checks) by Eurostat allow further the detection of possible inconsistencies which can be corrected if possible.
As from 2009 the statistics on air transport are comparable over time, as they are collected following fully the provisions of the legal act - the Regulation 437/2003. Time series checks are regularly made to detect inconsistencies in the data.
Time series breaks occur in case of airport being closed temporarily (for maintenance, reconstructions, etc.) or in case an airport does not exceed the threshold of 15 000 passenger unit per year (and may be excluded from air transport data provisions). The detailed information on eventual breaks in the time series is provided in the Country Specific Notes (CSNs) available at Eurostat's metadata page (in Annex part).
