Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO)

Sectoral Statistics Department

H-1525 Budapest, P.O.B. 51.
Hungary

The statistics on commercial aviation covers scheduled and non-scheduled air traffic at the six Hungarian airports Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport (LHBP), Airport Debrecen (LHDC), Győr-Pér Airport (LHPR), Nyíregyháza Airport (LHNY), Pécs-Pogány Airport (LHPP) and Hévíz-Balaton Airport in Sármellék (LHSM). Based on European legal bases results are transmitted to the statistical office of the European Union (Eurostat) six months after the reference month in the form of aggregated monthly data.
The survey includes all flights with passenger, freight and mail excluding empty leg flights in domestic and international traffic where the take-off or landing airport is located in Hungarian airports. The six airports contribute to the statistics by collecting and transmitting the data provided by the airlines and by the handlers to the national statistical office. In addition to aircraft data, information on the passengers, freight and mail volumes (number and quantity, and destination etc.) are collected.
The statistics are compiled and transmitted to Eurostat by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO - Központi Statisztikai Hivatal) on a monthly and annual basis (depending on the data set and airport category).
The data collection follows the provisions of the following legal acts:
National:
Government Decree on The National Statistical Data Collection Programme enacting the surveys of the reference period issued on the basis of the authorization of the Statistical Act (2016 CLV Law about Official Statistics) https://net.jogtar.hu/jogszabaly?docid=a1600155.tv

EU:
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 July 2003 implementing Regulation (EC) No 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 and amending Annexes I and II thereto (Text with EEA relevance)
Commission Regulation (EC) No 158/2007 of 16 February 2007 amending Commission Regulation (EC) No 1358/2003 as regards the list of Community airports (Text with EEA relevance)

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.
Datasets A1, B1 and C1 are provided on monthly basis by airports more than 150 000 passenger traffic per year. Dataset C1 is provided on annual basis by airports more than 15 000 but less than 150 000 passenger traffic per year, including the optional variable – total number of transfer passengers.
Airports handling less than 15 000 passenger units annually are not included in the datasets.
All datasets have been provided according to the legal act (with no derogations) starting from 2003 reference year.
When comparing Hungarian air transport statistics data published by Eurostat with the results of the National Statistics Institute, it has to be considered, that the two datasets show small discrepancies by definition. National published data include empty leg flights.
For more information, please refer to metainformation of HCSO which is prepared for the data collection at national level.

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.

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).

List of reporting airports by country with categories as from 2007 onwards is available in Commission Regulation (EC) No 158/2007 of 16 February 2007 amending Commission Regulation (EC) No 1358/2003 as regards the list of Community airports.

Airports under category ‘0’ are not included in the statistics provided to Eurostat.

International airports located on the territory of Hungary.

All datasets have been provided according to the legal act (with no derogations) starting from 2003 reference year. Passengers carried data and passengers on board data are available from 2002. Freight and mail on board data are available from 2001. Freight and mail loaded and unloaded data are available from 2002. Direct transit passengers data are available from 2010 only for the airport of Budapest while transfer passengers data are available from 2013 for Budapest airport.

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 as from 2017 reference year.

Reference period is the calendar year 2022.

National level:

•  Government Decree 503/2021 (18.08.) on The National Statistical Data Collection Programme enacting the surveys of the reference period issued on the basis of the authorization of the
•  Statistical Act (2016 CLV Law about Official Statistics)

European level: until 2002, the data were provided to Eurostat on a voluntary basis; since 2003 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:

•  Statistical Act (2016 CLV Law about Official Statistics)

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 Statistical Act (2016 CLV Law about Official Statistics)

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 at any stage of the collection and compilation process. However, Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport does not allow the publication of the individual data of the airlines.

Air transport statistics is published quarterly 60 days (about two months) after the reference quarter within the quarterly publication of the Statistical Reflections on transport performances. The data are available also in the Dissemination database of HCSO on a monthly basis.
Dissemination dates are publicly available in the dissemination calendar of the NSI.

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

Air transport statistics is published quarterly 60 days (about two months) after the reference quarter within the quarterly publication of the Statistical Reflections on transport performances. The data are available also in the Dissemination database of HCSO on a monthly basis. All these are free of charge to all users.

Air transport statistics is published quarterly 60 days (about two months) after the reference quarter within the quarterly publication of the Statistical Reflections on transport performances. The data are available also in the Dissemination database of HCSO on a monthly basis.

Air transport statistics is published quarterly 60 days (about two months) after the reference quarter within the quarterly publication of the Statistical Reflections on transport performances.

Publication of air transport statistics is done through the website of HCSO.

Monthly and annual data are available quarterly 60 days after the reference quarter also in the Dissemination database of HCSO on a monthly basis.

Not applicable to air transport statistics.

STADAT tables - quarterly, yearly

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

A Standard-documentation with Meta information (Definitions, comments, methods, quality) 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 GUIDELINES for the statistical processes of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office defined and made available to the public. 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).

HCSO has introduced standard quality reports to be produced and kept up-to-date for all statistics. These reports are available at the moment only for the associate of HCSO.

 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. 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 inlcude the excellent cooperation with the relevant departments of the airports. Timeliness and punctuality are very good.

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

The key users of air transport statistics collected according to the Regulation 437/2003 are:

• Ministry of Consturction and Transport (until 2022 autumn Ministry for Innovation and Technology, in 2017 its name was Ministry of National Development)
• 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 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, can not be fulfilled as such information is not collected within the data collection. Such information is also not available from the airports.

As Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport does not allow the publication of individual data of the airlines these data cannot be transmitted to the data users at all.

There was no user survey especially on air transport statistics data carried out so far but direct feedback from main users like the ministry, universities or aviation companies indicates a good level of satisfaction regarding data coverage and availability.
However, as Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport does not allow the publication of the individual data of the airlines some users miss these data sometimes.

 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.

Datasets A1 and B1- possibility to identify the true first origin/ final destination of a passenger:

External users expressed interest in True O/D data, but for the time being they are not collected by CBS.

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 show a high level of comparability.
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.

All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 act are transmitted to Eurostat latest 6 months after the reference month.

Difficulties to respect deadline for data transmission: 

There is not any difficulty to respect the deadline of T+6 months.
It would be feasible to deliver datasets with a delay of T+5 months.

During the meeting of the working group "Air transport statistics" in March 2021 the countries were asked to provide tables at a shorter deadline due to COVID impact on aviation statistics.

Hungary indicated that providing the tables is possible with a delay of T+3 months. In 2022 this deadline was kept.

All the statistics required by the provisions of the Regulation 437/2003 are available 1 month before the deadline for the data provisions set up in the legal act.

In 2022 all the statistics were provided with a delay of T+3 months.

There are no problems of comparability for air transport data collection with a 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 2003 the statistics on air transport are comparable over time, as they are collected fully following the provisions of the legal act - the Regulation 437/2003. Time series checks are regularly made to detect inconsistencies in the data.

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.
Also a comparison of passenger data with tourism statistics is only possible to a limited extent. The sample survey on travel habits of the Hungarian population covers only the journeys by plane of Hungarian residents. The data of the aviation statistics contains no information about the origin of the passengers; a distinction between Hungarian and foreign passengers is therefore not possible.

On the contrary, tourism statistics and foreign trade statistics use this data collection to adjust and to validate their statistics.

As from 2003 the 3 datasets (A1, B1 and C1) collected and provided to Eurostat are consistent.
Small incoherences between Hungarian air transport statistics data published by Eurostat and the National Statistics Institute might occur. This is due to the fact, that the data of Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport include empty leg flights and technical stops. Following the Regulation (EC) N°1358/2003, empty leg flights or technical stops are counted as non-commercial flights and are not transmitted to Eurostat.

The response burden is put on the airports, but is reduced to a minimum – the data users can provide the data via e-mail and are only contacted if plausibility errors cannot be solved by the NSI.

The data revision policy of HCSO can be found on its homepage.

The results are published in the dissemination database of HCSO quarterly 60 days (two months) after the reference quarter on a monthly basis and are final ones.
Revision do not occur as the problems and errors are eliminated during the validation procedure well before the data are integrated into the production database.

The policy described in 17.1 is fully implemented.

Dataset A1 – Data Suppliers (Passengers on board/Freight and mail on board):  Airports

Aircraft Information in A1: Electronic movement messages transmitted to airports

Seats information information in A1: Electronic movement messages transmitted to airports

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: Data do not include the freight transported by truck.

Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the direct transit information to the CNA:  Airports

Dataset C1 – Bodies that supply the commercial and total aircraft movement to the CNA: Airports

Information needed for the datasets A1, B1 and C1 are collected on monthly basis from two reporting airports and for the dataset C1 on annual basis from four airports.

The data for the purpose of the Regulation 437/2003 are collected monthly with an Excel-file from the airports. The transmission is possible via e-mail. Regarding annual data of four airports only electronic (through the ELEKTRA system) filling out is accepted from the reference year 2012.

Dataset A1 – Data supplier’s information sources (Passengers on board/ Freight and mail on board):

• Passengers on board - on the basis of electronic movement messages transmitted to airports and from handling agents

• Freight and mail on board - from handling agents

Dataset B1 – Data supplier’s information sources (Passengers carried/ Freight and mail loaded/unloaded):

• Passengers on board - on the basis of electronic movement messages transmitted to airports and from one handling agent

• Freight and mail on board - from handling agents

Datasets A1 and B1 - OFOD data derived from FS data or collected separately by the data supplier:  there is no difference between FS and OFOD data.

Implementation of the data collection and compilation process :

To meet the requirements of the EU Regulation a new monthly data collection - OSAP (National Programme for Statistical Data Collection) questionnaire No. 1966 - has been launched in 2003 to collect the data of Budapest/Ferenc Liszt International Airport (former Ferihegy airport) and an already existing annual data collection - OSAP 1725 - has been modified (simplified) to survey the smaller regional airports.

Data validation procedure: The validation procedure includes the check of the data format, codification and internal consistency of each dataset received from the airport. After the correction of the detected errors – together with the airport, the datasets are validated by the GENEDI 2.1 toolbox for aviation to filter out the double lines.

Description of consistency checks: Essential consistency check is applied to the datasets. (For example the passenger seats available cannot be less than the number of passengers).

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: As from July 2006 the datasets supplied by Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport (former Ferihegy airport) contained ICAO codes for coding the partner airports and the airlines while the aircraft types were coded with IATA codes. For transcodification the IATA codes into ICAO codes the code lists provided by Eurostat were used. From 2010 the datasets were supplied by the BUD airport with both IATA and ICAO aircraft codes. From 2018 only ICAO codes are provided.

Problems on data compilation, validation and delivery: There is not any particular problem existing in the data compilation and validation process.

Not applicable for air transport data collection.

There is no comment.