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.
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
The 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
The data are collected at individual airport level.
3.6. Statistical population
Four categories of Community airports are defined by the Regulation (EC) N°1358/2003:
Category "0": Airports with less than 15 000 passenger units per year are considered as having only "occasional commercial traffic" without obligation to report.
Category "1": Airports with between 15 000 and 150 000 passenger units per year shall transmit only aggregated airport data (Data set C).
Category "2": Airports with more than 150 000 passenger units and less than 1 500 000 passenger units per year shall transmit flight stage data, on flight origin destination data as well as aggregated airport data (Data sets A, B and C).
Category "3": Airports with at least 1 500 000 passenger units per year shall transmit flight stage data, on flight origin destination data as well as aggregated airport data (Data sets A, B and C).
Airports under category ‘0’ are not included in the statistics provided to Eurostat.
3.7. Reference area
Commercial airports located at the territory of Denmark.
3.8. Coverage - Time
Data has been reported starting from 1993 for flight stage and on flight origin destination data; 2001 for airport data. Monthly data on transfer passenger data are provided on regular basis from all airports as from July 2014.
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.
Reference period is the calendar year 2023.
Data is collected on a monthly basis for the purpose of data sets A1, B1 and C1.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
National level:
Consolidated Act no. 1149 of 13 October 2017.
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.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
The procedures with regard to statistical confidentiality folllows 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.
Data confidentiality problems:
Denmark stressed that, although they provided detailed airline information, it should be disseminated only at aggregated level (EU and non-EU carriers) as already agreed in the past. Any change of this arrangement should be subject to Denmark approval beforehand.
8.1. Release calendar
Danish data regarding Air Statistics are accessible at passagertal.dk the 20th in the following month, and data are delivered to Eurostat quarterly within the following month.
8.2. Release calendar access
We do not have any official release calender regarding data for Eurostat.
8.3. Release policy - user access
The date for publishing statistical data are announced on passagertal.dk, and all users get access to the newest data at that date.
Air transport statistics are published monthly 120 days (four months) after the reference month with being preliminary until publishing the annual results.
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
None
10.2. Dissemination format - Publications
None
10.3. Dissemination format - online database
Targit
10.4. Dissemination format - microdata access
Not applicable to air transport statistics.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
None
10.6. Documentation on methodology
A Standard-documentation with Meta information (Definitions, comments, methods, quality) on Air Transport Statistics is available at national level.
10.7. Quality management - documentation
There are no official documentation accessible at the moment.
11.1. Quality assurance
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.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
Implementation and compliance with the SDMX standards:
No information available.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Internal use, journalists, students and others.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
The users can send an e-mail through the online solution, if they have questions, or wishes for new statistics in the solution.
12.3. Completeness
Datasets A1 and B1- possibility to identyfy the true first origin/ final destination of a passenger:
In the case where the journey includes multiple flights (e.g. based on ticket information) we receive the destination of the route. Such a system requires data collection from Airline booking systems and can only be done on a centralised basis – fx. by Eurostat.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
The overall quality is good. The statistics is based on registrations of data about every individual flight rather than samples of observations. Comparisons with data published by the largest airports have shown that the accuracy is very high.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable for air transport data collection.
13.3. Non-sampling error
No non-sampling errors have been identified.
14.1. Timeliness
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are transmitted to Eurostat 4 months after the reference quarter.
14.2. Punctuality
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are available 2 months before the deadline for the data provisions set up in the legal act.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
No issues known
15.2. Comparability - over time
Data can be compared from 2001 and forward.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
None
15.4. Coherence - internal
New calculation of seats available from 2021.
from 2023: adjustment in data cleaning in terms of identifying unique flights, har improoved quality
-
17.1. Data revision - policy
No use of preliminary data.
17.2. Data revision - practice
None
18.1. Source data
Dataset A1 – Data Suppliers (Passengers on board/Freight and mail on board): Airport in Denmark (data in general originates from handling agencies, Cargo handlers at airport and/or airport administrations).
Aircraft Information in A1: All commercial airport with regular commercial traffic are transmitting monthly data to DCAA including detailed information per individual flight. Data are transmitted as text files in fixed format and uploaded to local system at DCAA.
Seats information information in A1: In some cases based on individual aircraft configuration data reported annually be airlines – in other cases similar but as average per aircraft configuration per company. In few cases on the basis of technical data as per aircraft type.
Dataset B1 –Data Suppliers (Passengers carried/Freight and mail loaded/unloaded): Airport in Denmark (data in general originates from handling agencies, Cargo handlers at airport and/or airport administrations).
Datasets A1 and B1 - Use of Air Waybill Data as information source of freight data: DCAA (CNA) does not accept freight statistics based on air waybill. This is the reason for the delay in reporting cargo statistics from Copenhagen Airport Kastrup – as complete new systems has to be implemented at the airport and all agencies at the airport.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the direct transit information to the CNA:
Airport in Denmark (data in general originates from handling agencies, Cargo handlers at airport and/or airport administrations)
Data in general originates from handling agencies, Cargo handlers at airport and/or airport administrations. In many cases original data are uploaded manually at airport databases – in other cases some or most data are based on data from other systems – ATS, ATC, OPS etc
All commercial airports with regular commercial traffic are transmitting monthly data to DCAA including detailed information per individual flight. Data are transmitted as text files in fixed format and uploaded to local system at DCAA.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the commercial and total aircraft movement to the CNA: See the point just above.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Data are collected monthly.
18.3. Data collection
Dataset A1 – Data supplier’s information sources (Passengers on board/ Freight and mail on board): Data in general originates from handling agencies, Cargo handlers at airport and/or airport administrations. In many cases original data are uploaded manually at airport databases – in other cases some or most data are based on data from other systems – ATS, ATC, OPS etc.
Dataset A1 – Data transmission to CNA – level of aggregation, system and periodicity (Passengers on board/ Freight and mail on board): All commercial airports with regular commercial traffic are transmitting monthly data to DCAA including detailed information per individual flight. Data are transmitted as text files in fixed format and uploaded to local system at DCAA.
Dataset B1 – Data supplier’s information sources (Passengers carried/ Freight and mail loaded/unloaded): Data in general originates from handling agencies, Cargo handlers at airport and/or airport administrations. In many cases original data are uploaded manually at airport databases – in other cases some or most data are based on data from other systems – ATS, ATC, OPS etc.
Dataset B1 – Data transmission to CNA – level of aggregation, system and periodicity (Passengers carried/ Freight and mail loaded/unloaded): All commercial airports with regular commercial traffic are transmitting monthly data to DCAA including detailed information per individual flight. Data are transmitted as text files in fixed format and uploaded to local system at DCAA.
Datasets A1 and B1 - OFOD data derived from FS data or collected separately by the data supplier: It is not possible to derive the OFOD data.
Implementation of the data collection and compilation process: Complete new system at DCAA. New systems or major changes (programming) to existing systems at airport including similar changes at agencies. A new system is presently being developed at Copenhagen Airport – Cost not yet identified, but estimated around 1 mio. Euro !
18.4. Data validation
Data validation procedure :
Local validation of format and some validation of data – including validation between passengers regarding FS and OFOD data, Area and some Country code validations etc.
If errors data validation result is send back to the airport for correction and new file is provided after correction at airport level.
Description of consistency checks :
None as mentioned – All data provided according to the Regulation is generated in system on the basis of data in general originating from handling agencies, Cargo handlers at airport and/or airport administrations.
In many cases original data are uploaded manually at airport databases – in other cases some or most data are based on data from other systems – ATS, ATC, OPS etc.
All commercial airports with regular commercial traffic are transmitting monthly data to DCAA including detailed information per individual flight. Data are transmitted as text files in fixed format and uploaded to local system at DCAA.
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 :
ICAO code not available from ICAO in file and therefore not fully up-dated in our system in order to validate data sufficiently. Similar problems at airport level.
Seat available / available for sale never fully according to the intension of the Regulation as such data requires extreme workload at source level.
Problems on data compilation, validation and delivery :
From the OFOD data received by the CNA, could it be possible to identify the true first origin/final destination of a passenger in the case where the journey includes multiple flights (e.g. based on ticket information)? NO ! (Such system requires on line data collection from Airline booking systems and can only be done on a centralized basis – fx. by Eurostat.
18.6. Adjustment
Not applicable for air transport data collection.
None
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.
17 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.
Commercial airports located at the territory of Denmark.
Reference period is the calendar year 2023.
Data is collected on a monthly basis for the purpose of data sets A1, B1 and C1.
The overall quality is good. The statistics is based on registrations of data about every individual flight rather than samples of observations. Comparisons with data published by the largest airports have shown that the accuracy is very high.
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.
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 :
ICAO code not available from ICAO in file and therefore not fully up-dated in our system in order to validate data sufficiently. Similar problems at airport level.
Seat available / available for sale never fully according to the intension of the Regulation as such data requires extreme workload at source level.
Problems on data compilation, validation and delivery :
From the OFOD data received by the CNA, could it be possible to identify the true first origin/final destination of a passenger in the case where the journey includes multiple flights (e.g. based on ticket information)? NO ! (Such system requires on line data collection from Airline booking systems and can only be done on a centralized basis – fx. by Eurostat.
Dataset A1 – Data Suppliers (Passengers on board/Freight and mail on board): Airport in Denmark (data in general originates from handling agencies, Cargo handlers at airport and/or airport administrations).
Aircraft Information in A1: All commercial airport with regular commercial traffic are transmitting monthly data to DCAA including detailed information per individual flight. Data are transmitted as text files in fixed format and uploaded to local system at DCAA.
Seats information information in A1: In some cases based on individual aircraft configuration data reported annually be airlines – in other cases similar but as average per aircraft configuration per company. In few cases on the basis of technical data as per aircraft type.
Dataset B1 –Data Suppliers (Passengers carried/Freight and mail loaded/unloaded): Airport in Denmark (data in general originates from handling agencies, Cargo handlers at airport and/or airport administrations).
Datasets A1 and B1 - Use of Air Waybill Data as information source of freight data: DCAA (CNA) does not accept freight statistics based on air waybill. This is the reason for the delay in reporting cargo statistics from Copenhagen Airport Kastrup – as complete new systems has to be implemented at the airport and all agencies at the airport.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the direct transit information to the CNA:
Airport in Denmark (data in general originates from handling agencies, Cargo handlers at airport and/or airport administrations)
Data in general originates from handling agencies, Cargo handlers at airport and/or airport administrations. In many cases original data are uploaded manually at airport databases – in other cases some or most data are based on data from other systems – ATS, ATC, OPS etc
All commercial airports with regular commercial traffic are transmitting monthly data to DCAA including detailed information per individual flight. Data are transmitted as text files in fixed format and uploaded to local system at DCAA.
Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the commercial and total aircraft movement to the CNA: See the point just above.
Air transport statistics are published monthly 120 days (four months) after the reference month with being preliminary until publishing the annual results.
All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are transmitted to Eurostat 4 months after the reference quarter.
