Statistics Austria

Directorate Business Statistics - Transport Unit

The statistics on commercial aviation covers scheduled and non-scheduled air traffic at the six Austrian airports Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Linz and Salzburg. Based on European legal bases results are transmitted to the statistical office of the European Union (Eurostat) two months after the reference quarter at the latest in the form of aggregated monthly data.

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 located in Austria. The six airports contribute to the statistics by collecting the data provided by the airlines and transmitting them to the national statistical office. In addition to aircraft data (registration, seats, payload etc.), information on passengers, freight and mail volumes (number and quantity, destination and final destination etc.) are collected.

The statistics are compiled and transmitted monthly to Eurostat by the National Statistical Institute of Austria (Bundesanstalt Statistik Österreich) on a monthly and annual basis (depending on the contents of the data set). The data collection follows the provisions of the following legal acts:

National:

• BGBl. Nr. 61/1972 Bundesgesetz vom 2. Feber 1972 betreffend statistische Erhebungen auf dem Gebiete der Zivilluftfahrt (Zivilluftfahrt-Statistikgesetz);
• BGBl. Nr. 538/1976 Verordnung des Bundesministers für Verkehr vom 23. September 1976, mit der statistische Erhebungen über Stand und Leistungen der Zivilluftfahrt angeordnet werden (Zivilluftfahrt-Statistikverordnung)

EU:

• Regulation (EC) N°1358/2003, implementing Regulation N°437/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air.

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.

All datasets are provided on monthly basis, while data on commercial aircraft movements and total aircraft movements in dataset C1 is provided on annual basis. The optional variable total number of transfer passengers is included in dataset C1.

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 2002 reference year. Partial information (passenger transport only, annual aggregates) are available starting from 1993 reference year.

When comparing Austrian air transport statistics data published by Eurostat with the results of the National Statistics Institute, it has to be considered, that the two data sets show small discrepancies by definition. On the hand national published data include empty leg flights and technical stops, pm the other hand the number of passengers does not include infants in arms. Following Regulation (EC) N°1358/2003, empty leg flights or technical stops are not transmitted to Eurostat and the number of passengers includes infants in arms.

For more information, please refer to Standard-documentation Meta information (Definitions, comments, methods, quality) on Air Transport Statistics (de, en), which is prepared for the data collection at national level.

Airports are classified according to ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) airport codes 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).

Air transport - commercial air services and civil aircraft movements for the airports with traffic in excess of 15 000 passenger units annually.

The main concepts used in this domain are the following:

Community airport - a defined 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.

International airports located on the territory of Austria.

All data sets have been provided according to the legal act (with no derogations) starting from 2002 reference year. Partial information (annual aggregates on passenger transport only) are available starting from 1993 reference year. Transfer passenger data (annual) are available for all airports as from 2002.

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 with three decimal places.

Reference year is the calendar year 2022.

National level:

• BGBl. Nr. 61/1972 Bundesgesetz vom 2. Feber 1972 betreffend statistische Erhebungen auf dem Gebiete der Zivilluftfahrt (Zivilluftfahrt-Statistikgesetz);
• BGBl. Nr. 538/1976 Verordnung des Bundesministers für Verkehr vom 23. September 1976, mit der statistische Erhebungen über Stand und Leistungen der Zivilluftfahrt angeordnet werden (Zivilluftfahrt-Statistikverordnung)

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 437/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 February 2003 on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air.
• Commission Regulation (EC) No 1358/2003 of 31/07/2003.
• Commission Regulation No 546/2005 of 8 April 2005.
• Commission Regulation No 158/2007 of 16 February 2007.

Not applicable

National level:

• Federal Statistical Act

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.

The procedures with regard to statistical confidentiality follows the Handbook on Statistical Disclosure Control (2010) and the Federal Statistical 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.

Main results for air transport statistics are published monthly 30 days (1 month) after the reference month and are preliminary until publishing the annual results in form of a press release. Annual results are published as soon as available - 120 days (4 months) after the reference year at the latest. Reference year 2022 was published on February 24th, 2023.

Release dates are publicly available in the release calendar of the NSI.

Since release dates are planned sometimes far in advance, changes of dates might occur in both directions. Therefore, the Release Calendar is updated continually. 

The release calendar is publicly available on the website of the NSI.

Main results of commercial aviation statistics are available free of charge to all users. More detailed results (e.g. airports) can be obtained with subscription. For special data requests additional evaluations can be offered.

Next to the release calendar users are informed of the release of the annual press release if subscribed to the specific newsletter.

At the release date, air transport statistics is available to all users at the same time.

Main results for air transport statistics are published monthly 30 days (1 month) after the reference month with being preliminary until publishing the annual results. More detailed data are published as soon as they are available – within 60 days (2 months) after the reference month at the latest.

Annual data are published with a press release as soon as available - 120 days (4 months) after the reference year at the latest. Reference year 2022 was published on February 24th, 2023.

If required, results during the year are also published in form of a press release.

An example of the annual press release can be found under this link.

Publication of air transport statistics is done through our website.

Furthermore, the results are published in the following publications “Verkehrsstatistik”, “Statistisches Jahrbuch” and at irregular intervals in articles in the “Statistischen Nachrichten”.

The results can be found in the STATcube database (Statistics > Transport > Aviation > Commercial civil aviation).

Main results are available free of charge. For more detailed results (e.g. airports) the data user has to pay for accessing the data.

Not applicable to air transport statistics.

Open data access is available for the main results of air transport statistics.

A Standard-documentation with Meta information (Definitions, comments, methods, quality - de, en) on Air Transport Statistics is available at national level.

A Standard-documentation with Meta information (Definitions, comments, methods, quality - de, en) on Air Transport Statistics is available at national level.

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 (please provide more details if relevant). 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.

Moreover, in the framework of Statistics Austria Total Quality Management (TQM) approach, Statistics Austria has introduced standard quality reports (standard-documentation - de, en) to be produced and kept up-to-date for all statistics. The reports are based on the ESS definition of quality in statistics and follow the European standard quality report and provide users with information about the underlying concepts, definitions, methods used and the quality of the statistics (meta-information) in a standardised format.

In cooperation with the Statistic Committee’s Quality Assurance Committee, feedback meetings concerning the quality of the different statistical products on the basis of the standard documentation are held regularly within the framework of Statistics Austria’s quality management programme. They involve both internal (including the production domain, a peer domain and national accountants) and external experts (such as main users and methodologists).

The content and objectives of the feedback meetings concern critical examination of the quality aspects of statistics with particular consideration of the methods and processes used; identification of quality improvement potential; development of recommendations for improvement measures; and improvement of the standard documentation relating to the statistics in question, with special attention to the views of users and external experts.

For air transport statistics the last feedback meeting took place in November 2018.

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.

Next to the extensive plausibility checks, main strength include the completely automatic data transmission by the airports via XML and the excellent cooperation with the relevant departments of the airports. Timeliness and punctuality are very good. Revisions concern only a few flights.

A main weakness of the data concerns the on flight origin information of passengers on flights with a unique flight number. This number is not known or provided by the airports, why 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.

If there are any inconsistencies Statistics Austria provides an explanation which is included in the Country Specific Notes (CSNs) available as an Annex to Eurostat’s metadata file.

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, routes, number of passengers, amount of transported freight and mail as well as seats available provides an important 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, cannot be fulfilled as such information is not collected within the data collection. This information is also not available from the airports.

From November 2022 to February 2023 Statistics Austria conducted a user satisfaction survey with 381 experts on a voluntary basis. Although there was no user survey especially on air transport statistics, questions concerning transport statistics in general were included. Users showed a high satisfaction with actuality, accuracy, comparability and quality of transport data. Also, feedback from the Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology, universities and the Economic Chambers indicates a good level of satisfaction regarding data coverage and availability of these statistics.

The data collection on air transport statistics follows the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003. All variables in all three data sets are provided including the voluntary variable – transfer passenger.

Overall accuracy of the air transport statistics data is good. The processing with several plausibility checks as well as checks done before transmitting data to Eurostat provides a high accuracy of the data. Comparisons 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.

Not applicable for air transport data collection.

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 prevent a misclassification of aircraft types or partner airports.

All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are transmitted to Eurostat within 1 or 2 months after the reference month.

All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are available before the deadline for the data provisions set up in the legal act.

There are no problems of comparability for air transport data collection with very high data comparability across countries due to the common legal basis. Comparisons 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 2002 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).

The data transmitted to Eurostat before 2002 consisted only of aggregates on passenger transport.

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.

When comparing transported freight with foreign trade statistics it has to be kept in mind, that foreign trade statistics exchange goods and their value between individuals while aviation statistics show the performance of the transport mode air. Information regarding the means of transport used is only partially known in foreign trade statistics. In addition, the movement of the goods is observed, while the movement of the means of transport is important in transport statistics. As a result, a certain product appears only once in the foreign trade statistics. In contrast to transport statistics, where every reloading is collected.

A comparison of passenger data with tourism statistics was also only possible to a limited extent. The sample survey on travel habits of the Austrian population covers only the journeys by plane of Austrian residents. The data of the aviation statistics contains no information about the origin of the passengers; a distinction between Austrian and foreign passengers is therefore not possible. In addition, the tourism statistics - in contrast to aviation statistics - only collects data of people older than 15 years. Accordingly, the number of passengers processed in air transport statistics is by an average of one third greater than the number of people in tourism statistics.

As from 2002 the 3 data sets (A1, B1 and C1) collected and provided to Eurostat are consistent.

Small incoherencies between Austrian air transport statistics data published by Eurostat and the National Statistics Institute might occur. This is due to the fact, that national data include empty leg flights and technical stops while the number of passengers does not include infants in arms. Following Regulation (EC) N°1358/2003, empty leg flights or technical stops are not transmitted to Eurostat and the number of passengers includes infants in arms.

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 by the NSI.

The results are published monthly as soon as available – within 60 days (2 months) after the reference month at the latest - and are preliminary until publishing the annual results.

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.

In case of any data change in the statistics after the annual results have been published, the public is informed in a form of an official notice (in case of data change to the Press Release) or footnotes (in case of pdf publications or on-line tables).

The policy described in 17.1 is fully implemented.

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 data sets.

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).

Information needed for the data sets A1, B1 and C1 are collected on monthly basis from all reporting airports.

The data for the purpose of the Regulation 437/2003 is collected monthly via an XML-file from the airports. The transmission is possible via a SFTP interface or via e-mail.

Data validation takes place at several levels of the data processing. The first step is the automatic validation during the integration of the received file into the database, the second step are the quality checks when data has been integrated. After that mirror checks of national flights as well as times series checks are performed and the results are compared to the results published by the airports.

The initial checks especially ensure that the record format is correct, there are no duplicate records within the data set and that each record contains valid and correct codes (especially for airlines, airports and aircraft types). Furthermore it is also checked if the number of passengers or amount of freight and mail is possible with the transmitted aircraft type and its configurations (seats, MTOW or payload).

Further quality checks include:

• Consistency over time
• Comparisons between arrivals and departures
• Mirror checks (for national transport)
• Comparison of results with the summary tables provided by the airports

If necessary the relevant airports are contacted and asked to confirm questionable information.

After various plausibility checks, the data received from the airports are compiled into monthly data set following the structure which is pre-set by regulation (EC) 1358/2003.

Not applicable for air transport data collection.

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