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.
Transport, Post and Telecommunications Unit - Structural Business Statistics Directorate - Economic Statistics Directorate-General
1.3. Contact name
Confidential because of GDPR
1.4. Contact person function
Confidential because of GDPR
1.5. Contact mail address
16 Libertatii Bvd., Bucharest 5, ROMANIA
1.6. Contact email address
Confidential because of GDPR
1.7. Contact phone number
Confidential because of GDPR
1.8. Contact fax number
Confidential because of GDPR
2.1. Metadata last certified
7 August 2025
2.2. Metadata last posted
7 August 2025
2.3. Metadata last update
7 August 2025
3.1. Data description
The main objective of this statistics is to provide data on the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by commercial air services as well as on civil aircraft movements to or from Community airports, except for flights by State aircraft.
Three datasets required by the EU-Regulation are provided to Eurostat: the Flight Stage dataset, called A1, the On Flight Origin/Destination dataset, called B1 and the Airport dataset, called C1.
A1: This dataset contains 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.
B1: This dataset contains 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.
C1: This dataset contains 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 freight and mail loaded or unloaded, total commercial aircraft movements and aircraft movements. This dataset must contain at least annual data.
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
Data include commercial and civil air traffic at the major airports (more than 15,000 passenger units per year).
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
Data is 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 Romania.
3.8. Coverage - Time
Data has been reported starting from 2001. Passengers carried data are available from 2001 and Passengers on board data are available from 2004. Freight and mail loaded/unloaded are available from 2002. Freight and mail on board are available from 2004. Direct transit passengers data are available from 2001. Transfer passenger data (monthly) available as from 2019.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
The units used depend on the variables collected within each data set and are: number of passengers, tonnes, number of flights, aircraft movements and passenger seats available.
The weight of freight and mail is transmitted in tonnes rounded to full numbers.
Data is collected on a monthly basis for the purpose of data sets A1 and B1 and on annual basis for the purpose of data set C1.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
National level:
Order of the President of Romanian National Institute of Statistics;
Law 226/2009 on organising and functioning of official statistics in Romania updated with subsequent amendments.
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:
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.
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:
Data confidentiality problems may occure when commercial data is not reported by airlines for seats available information, and this is being replaced with average aircraft capacities.
8.1. Release calendar
Data is disseminated in quarterly publications on .pdf/.xls on NIS website at sixty, than ninety days after the end of the reference quarter and annual data is disseminated in TEMPO online NIS database at five months after the end of the reference year.
Data is available to all users in electronic format.
Air transport statistics are transmitted to Eurostat no later than six months after the end of the reference period.
At national level, data is disseminated in quarterly and yearly NIS publications.
Annual data is disseminated in TEMPO online database.
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
Not applicable.
10.2. Dissemination format - Publications
'Transport at airports of passengers and freight' and 'Transport of passengers and goods, by mode of transport' - NIS quarterly publications on NIS website as .pdf and .xls format.
'Romanian Statistical Yearbook'; 'Monthly Statistical Bulletin' and other NIS publications.
10.3. Dissemination format - online database
Annual data is disseminated in NIS TEMPO online database.
10.4. Dissemination format - microdata access
Not applicable.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
Data is also disseminated in other synthesis NIS publications
10.6. Documentation on methodology
Metadata are available on NIS website.
Methodological information is included in NIS quarterly publications and in TEMPO online database tables.
10.7. Quality management - documentation
Annual Quality Reports are produced. Documentation on quality management is available on the INS website:Quality reports
11.1. Quality assurance
Data quality is ensured by following the guidelines specified in the European Statistics Code of Practice.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
The data quality is good.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
At national level, statistical data is used by Romanian public authorities, i.e. Ministries, Agencies, researchers, other users.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
A user satisfaction survey carried out by NIS every three years. The most recent one was in 2021. The publication can be found at the following Insse website.
This publication presents how the statistical data produced and the methodological information of the NIS meet to the information needs of different categories of users. It includes a presentation of the main results of the statistical survey on "Statistical data user satisfaction", respectively the profile of users of statistical data produced by the NIS, trust in the NIS and the statistical data produced by the NIS, the quality assessment of the data produced by the NIS.
12.3. Completeness
The statistics produced are complete in accordance with the legal act provisions.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
Overall accuracy of data is good, main checks carried out before the transmission to Eurostat of aggregated data are: consistency over time and unknown or wrongly used codes. Similar checks and validations are performed also before data processing.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are transmitted to Eurostat 3 months after the reference quarter.
At national level, data are disseminated 60 days after the end of the reference period in the INS quarterly publication "Transport at airports of passengers and freight" and 90 days after the end of the quarter in the INS publication "Transport of goods and passengers, by modes of transport"
14.2. Punctuality
The statistics are delivered on time.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
Not applicable.
15.2. Comparability - over time
Since 2004 reference year.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Not applicable.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Not applicable.
The information on costs is available in the National Annual Statistical Programme.
Dataset A1 – Data Suppliers (Passengers on board/Freight and mail on board): Airports
Aircraft Information in A1: Aircraft information is obtained from airlines, as original source.
Seats available information in A1: Seats available information refers to technical data, but there are situations when aircraft configuration is reported by airlines as commercial data.
Dataset B1 –Data Suppliers (Passengers carried/Freight and mail loaded/unloaded): Airports
Datasets A1 and B1 - Use of Air Waybill Data as information source of freight data: there is no case.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the direct transit information to the CNA: Airports The information is collected via e-mail, in a file containing the variables which describe every individual flight from the airports listed above. Direct transit passengers is one of these variables.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the commercial and total aircraft movement to the CNA: The bodies supplying commercial and total aircraft information are airports. The information regarding commercial and total aircraft movements is collected with the description of every individual flight.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Quarterly data collection performed.
18.3. Data collection
Dataset A1 – Data supplier’s information sources( Passengers on board/ Freight and mail on board): Data is collected based on electronic movement messages but also there are cases when data is collected directly from companies.
Dataset A1 – Data transmission to CNA – level of aggregation, system and periodicity (Passengers on board/ Freight and mail on board):
Level of aggregation: individual flight level;
Transmission system: e-mail;
Data is transmitted quarterly, for every month in the quarter.
Dataset B1 – Data supplier’s information sources (Passengers carried/ Freight and mail loaded/unloaded): Data is collected on electronic movement messages basis but also there are cases when data are collected directly from companies.
Dataset B1 – Data transmission to CNA – level of aggregation, system and periodicity(Passengers carried/ Freight and mail loaded/unloaded):
Level of aggregation: individual flight level;
Transmission system: e-mail;
Data is transmitted quarterly, for every month in the quarter.
Datasets A1 and B1: OFOD (on flight origin/destination) data provided to NIS is derived from FS (flight satge) data.
Implementation of the data collection and compilation process: The compliance with the Regulation requests has implied the implementation of a new data collection and compilation process which has been carried out by NIS Transport Department since 2003.
18.4. Data validation
Data validation procedure:
IT Department has created an Oracle application for validating and processing aviation data; according to validation conditions, all codification errors regarding type of aircraft, airports and airlines are listed and also the following correlations are checked:
Total of passengers on board should be lower than number of passenger seats available;
Total of passengers embarked/debarked should be equal with the total of passengers resulted from summarizing the passengers by airports of origin/destination;
Total of freight and mail loaded/unloaded should be equal with the total of freight and mail resulted from summarizing the freight and mail by airports of origin/destination;
Passengers on board should be equal with the sum of passengers embarked/debarked and direct transit passengers.
Description of consistency checks: Consistency checks are performed by Transport Statistics Team with NIS.
18.5. Data compilation
After various validation checks, data received from airports are compiled into monthly data following the structure of the data sets which are preset by Regulation (EC) 1358/2003.
Data codification practices: Information supplied to NIS mainly use the codes requested in the Regulation, but there are still a few situations where transcodification performed at NIS is needed, especially concerning aircraft type codification.
Problems on data compilation, validation and delivery: No particular problems detected.
18.6. Adjustment
Not applicable.
No comments.
The main objective of this statistics is to provide data on the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by commercial air services as well as on civil aircraft movements to or from Community airports, except for flights by State aircraft.
Three datasets required by the EU-Regulation are provided to Eurostat: the Flight Stage dataset, called A1, the On Flight Origin/Destination dataset, called B1 and the Airport dataset, called C1.
A1: This dataset contains 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.
B1: This dataset contains 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.
C1: This dataset contains 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 freight and mail loaded or unloaded, total commercial aircraft movements and aircraft movements. This dataset must contain at least annual data.
7 August 2025
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.
Data is 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 Romania.
Data is collected on a monthly basis for the purpose of data sets A1 and B1 and on annual basis for the purpose of data set C1.
Overall accuracy of data is good, main checks carried out before the transmission to Eurostat of aggregated data are: consistency over time and unknown or wrongly used codes. Similar checks and validations are performed also before data processing.
The units used depend on the variables collected within each data set and are: number of passengers, tonnes, number of flights, aircraft movements and passenger seats available.
The weight of freight and mail is transmitted in tonnes rounded to full numbers.
After various validation checks, data received from airports are compiled into monthly data following the structure of the data sets which are preset by Regulation (EC) 1358/2003.
Data codification practices: Information supplied to NIS mainly use the codes requested in the Regulation, but there are still a few situations where transcodification performed at NIS is needed, especially concerning aircraft type codification.
Problems on data compilation, validation and delivery: No particular problems detected.
Dataset A1 – Data Suppliers (Passengers on board/Freight and mail on board): Airports
Aircraft Information in A1: Aircraft information is obtained from airlines, as original source.
Seats available information in A1: Seats available information refers to technical data, but there are situations when aircraft configuration is reported by airlines as commercial data.
Dataset B1 –Data Suppliers (Passengers carried/Freight and mail loaded/unloaded): Airports
Datasets A1 and B1 - Use of Air Waybill Data as information source of freight data: there is no case.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the direct transit information to the CNA: Airports The information is collected via e-mail, in a file containing the variables which describe every individual flight from the airports listed above. Direct transit passengers is one of these variables.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the commercial and total aircraft movement to the CNA: The bodies supplying commercial and total aircraft information are airports. The information regarding commercial and total aircraft movements is collected with the description of every individual flight.
Air transport statistics are transmitted to Eurostat no later than six months after the end of the reference period.
At national level, data is disseminated in quarterly and yearly NIS publications.
Annual data is disseminated in TEMPO online database.
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are transmitted to Eurostat 3 months after the reference quarter.
At national level, data are disseminated 60 days after the end of the reference period in the INS quarterly publication "Transport at airports of passengers and freight" and 90 days after the end of the quarter in the INS publication "Transport of goods and passengers, by modes of transport"
