ACI Statistics Manual - Airports Council International

2ICAO’s Statistics ProgrammeICAO has maintained a robust statistics and forecasting programme for many years. Themain difference between ICAO’s programme and ACI’s is that ICAO obtains most of itsinformation from the 191 States which are signatories to the Chicago Convention. Thismeans that surveys are sent to national administrations (normally ministries of transport orcivil aviation authorities). As ICAO acknowledges in the working paper below, this can leadto delays in obtaining data. With more and more airports operated by either autonomousauthorities or by commercialized or privatized entities, there is a certain distance betweenthe government and the airport operator that can slow the transmission of data.ACI and ICAO have cooperated closely in some areas of airport statistics, including coorganizing a successful workshop on statistics and forecasting at ICAO Headquarters in2007. In addition, ACI and ICAO personnel are engaged in a frequent dialogue aboutstatistics: both organizations recognize the need to avoid overlap and duplication in therestatistical programmes. Indeed, both ACI and ICAO are keenly aware of the potential for“survey overload” on airport staff, particularly at smaller airports which have leanorganizational resources. Inundating airports with surveys ultimately leads to either a poorresponse rate or to a dilution of the quality of information obtained. ACI was an activeparticipant in both the ICAO Statistics Panel and the ICAO Statistics Division meetings in2010, preparing 7 information papers for these meetings. (all documents are available atwww.icao.int).A working paper which ICAO prepared for the 2010 Statistics Panel outlines theorganization’s programmes and its relationships with IATA and ACI in the area of aviationstatistics. It is presented in its entirety below.7ACI Statistics Manual 2011

STAP/14-WP/9International Civil AviationOrganization16/2/09WORKING PAPERSTATISTICS PANEL (STAP)FOURTEENTH MEETINGMontréal, 23 to 27 March 2009Agenda Item 4: Coordination of ICAO Statistics Programme with those of otherorganizationsCOORDINATION OF ICAO’S STATISTICS PROGRAMME WITHTHOSE OF OTHER CIVIL AVIATION ORGANIZATIONS(Presented by the Secretary)SUMMARYThe United Nations (UN) recognizes ICAO as the central agency responsible forstatistics within its special sphere, while outside the UN system, there are otherorganizations that collect and publish statistics on civil aviation. ICAO collects datafrom its Contracting States, as, under the Chicago Convention, States are obliged toprovide civil aviation statistics, whereas the trade associations obtain their data directlyfrom their members which participation in this activity is on a voluntary basis. ICAOmaintains close contacts with all these organizations to try to avoid duplication of effortas well as to maintain common definitions throughout the industry so as not tooverburden reporting entities and confuse users. Of the various statistics on civilaviation collected by ICAO, the ones dealing with air carrier and airport statistics areco-ordinated with international organizations such as the International Air TransportAssociation (IATA) and Airports Council International (ACI), notably through theirparticipation as Observers at the meetings of the ICAO Statistics Division, StatisticsPanel and in many of the regional workshops.This paper provides a general overview of the existing and potential co-ordinationbetween ICAO on the one hand and some international organizations, as well asregional civil aviation bodies on the other. More specific material is provided in theworking papers dealing with the statistics programmes concerned.The Panel is invited to:a) note this information; andb)identify the most effective ways to improve the current co-ordination process andimplement any new relevant co-ordination process, between ICAO and the different civilaviation bodies involved8ACI Statistics Manual 2011

1.INTRODUCTION1.1Within the United Nations (UN) system each UN office and specialized agency isresponsible for a specific field of activity, such as for example agriculture, civil aviation, education,environment, health, Tourism. Article XIII of the agreement signed between ICAO and the UN in1948 recognizes ICAO “. as the central agency responsible for the collection, analysis, publication,standardisation, improvement and dissemination of statistics within its special sphere .” There hasbeen no significant infringement of this agreement within the UN system and other UN bodies askICAO for any civil aviation statistics they require.1.2Outside the UN system, in addition to ICAO there are other internationalorganizations which collect and publish statistics on civil aviation at a global or regional level.However ICAO has a position of leadership when it comes to defining statistical terms and what theyrepresent and in that regard, ICAO maintains close contacts with all these organizations to try to avoidduplication of effort as well as to maintain common definitions throughout the industry so as not tooverburden reporting entities and confuse users. Indeed, because of ICAO’s global coverage andformal mechanisms to discuss and adopt internationally accepted definitions for aviation statistics,both international and regional organizations look at ICAO for leadership in this area wheneverchanges or clarifications need to be made in order to keep statistics relevant to changes in industrypractices.1.3Co-ordination with international organizations such as the International Air TransportAssociation (IATA) and Airports Council International (ACI) is achieved at the strategic level throughtheir participation as Observers at the meetings of the ICAO Statistics Division, Statistics Panel and inmany of the regional workshops. Similarly when issues of mutual interest are involved, ICAO isinvited to attend meetings on statistics held by other organizations.1.4On a day-to-day basis there has always been an excellent relationship between thestatistics staff of these organizations which readily exchange non-confidential data to maintain eachothers’ data sets as complete as possible. These data are intended to be used for internal purposes inorder to improve regional and global estimates.1.5The text below provides a general overview of co-ordination between ICAO on theone hand and some international organizations as well as regional civil aviation bodies on the other.More specific material is provided in the working papers dealing with the statistics programmesconcerned.2.INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION ORGANIZATION (ICAO)2.1Under the terms of the Article 67 1 of the Chicago Convention, and the last AssemblyResolution A36-15, as shown in Appendix A, States are obliged to provide civil aviation statistics toICAO whereas in the case of the trade associations, except for those figures required to establish thelevel of contribution of their members, participation in this activity is on a voluntary basis. Of thevarious statistics on civil aviation collected by ICAO, those which have a direct correspondence withother international organizations are the programmes dealing with air carrier and airport statistics.2.2Where ICAO finds itself at a disadvantage with regard to IATA and ACI is in thetimeliness in receiving and processing certain data as ICAO goes through the national administrationsof its Contracting States to obtain data for air carriers and airports, whereas IATA and ACI obtain theirdata directly from their members.1Each contracting State undertakes that its international airlines shall, in accordance with requirements laid down by the Council, file withthe Council traffic reports, cost statistics and financial statements showing among other things all receipts and the sources thereof.9ACI Statistics Manual 2011

2.3Also there is no obligation for either of these two trade associations to make statisticaldata available in the public domain except as a public relations exercise, or to derive a commercialbenefit. Also, the detail or amount of data released to the public are subject to the discretion of theirmembers. This is somewhat different from ICAO, where most data can be made available to the publicdomain and also has an obligation to disseminate the information it collects and make it available freeof charge to all Contracting States whether they participate in the ICAO Statistics Programme or not.2.4Furthermore, both confidential and public databases of the non-governmentalorganizations are at risk of amendment or deletion at any time, whereas ICAO undergoes an extensiveconsultation process with States to ensure that changes to its statistical programmes reflect continuedor new user needs while justifying provider costs.3.INTERNATIONAL AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION (IATA)3.1IATA was founded in Havana, Cuba, in April 1945. At January 1st 2009, IATArepresented 225 airlines from 117 countries. Flights performed by IATA members represent 93% ofthe world’s international scheduled traffic for commercial air carriers measured by ASK.3.2The IATA statistical activities are centralised within the Business IntelligenceServices (BIS) unit based in Montreal Head Office. IATA statistical activities encompass member aswell as non- member airlines. IATA data collections cover international and domestic operations, forscheduled and non-scheduled airlines. Co-ordination and harmonization with ICAO is looked at alllevels of airline statistics.3.3The statistics collected by IATA on a regular basis include: a. the World AirTransport Statistics (WATS) compiling airline annual operational statistics (traffic, employees,aircraft, fuel and financials). b. Monthly International Statistics (MIS) collecting monthly traffic andcapacity air carrier data for international scheduled services. c. Origin Destination Statistics (ODS)collecting city-pair passenger and freight traffic. d. Route Area Statistics (RAS) focused on airlinetraffic and capacity per route area. e. Airline Economic Task Force (AETF) collecting airlineoperational costs and revenues. BIS activities include the centralized processing of passenger flowstatistics, derived from IATA BSP operations world wide.3.4IATA produces distinct reports distributed among its member airlines and open to thepublic. A portion of the statistics collected from airline members are confidential and by nature notavailable to the public. Electronic reports are produced on a monthly basis while publications arereleased on an annual basis. Additionally, the IATA Economics department publishes several industryanalyses, which can be found in IATA public web site.3.5It is noteworthy that detailed air carrier operational and financial data by route groupare collected by ICAO through an annual questionnaire used for the study on the regional differencesin airline economics. These data are used by ICAO to calculate the prorate factors for the IATAProrate Agency to prorate passenger revenues involving interline journeys.4.AIRPORTS COUNCIL INTERNATIONAL (ACI)4.1According to recent figures made available by ACI, this organization has amembership of 597 airports and airport authorities which manage a total of some 1679 internationaland domestic airports. ACI has a monthly traffic data collection where total figures for aircraft,passenger and cargo movements are reported, plus a more detailed annual data collection similar tothe data collected by ICAO on Form I. ACI produces a yearly report covering annual total traffic datafor some 1300 airports (of which about 45% are entirely domestic) from 159 States.10ACI Statistics Manual 2011

4.2Under the present instructions for Form I States are only required to submit data forthose principal airports having a combined traffic of at least 90 per cent of the total internationalcommercial traffic (scheduled and non-scheduled) of all airports of each State. Proposals submitted inSTAP/14 WP 6 might increase the number of airports reported by the States by capturing some largedomestic airports for which no data need to be reported under the current ICAO instructions.4.3ACI undertakes annual economics surveys, including airport revenues, investment andemployment. Regarding airport financial data collection by ICAO, ACI is leaving to the discretion ofindividual airports whether or not to provide financial data to ICAO which could explain partly thelow submission rate by States to the ICAO airport financial data collection (Reporting Form J).5.REGIONAL CIVIL AVIATION BODIES5.1In the statistical field as in other fields, ICAO maintains a special relationship with theAfrican Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC), the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) andthe Latin American Civil Aviation Commission (LACAC).5.2With regard to the statistical activities of these bodies there has always been anunderstanding, that there should be no undesirable duplication of work and that all statistics ofsignificant interest to more than one region should be collected and published by ICAO, while moredetailed data of pure regional interest or availability should be dealt by the regional body concerned.However at present only ECAC and LACAC have active (though limited) statistics programmeswhich complement ICAO’s programme.5.3ECAC collects and circulates to its Member States detailed statistics on accidents ingeneral aviation. This programme is meant to supplement the ICAO ADREP system for aircraft below2 250 kg. of maximum take-off mass.5.4ECAC also used to collect and publish origin and destination statistics for nonscheduled services to, from and within Europe to complement the data collected by ICAO through itsOFOD programme. However, EUROSTAT, the statistical office of the European Commission appearsto have taken over responsibility for collecting these data. Though this programme is similar to the onerun by LACAC (see below), in EUROSTAT only aggregate traffic data are shown without identifyingthe carriers participating in each market. However, it should be noted that lately, the effort byEUROSTAT to collect and disseminate data on civil aviation has been somewhat hampered by lack ofresources in this area.5.5The data collected by LACAC is coupon origin and destination statistics for scheduledrevenue passengers, freight and mail services covering all international services to and from airports inits Member States. The LACAC reports contain monthly data, but there are differences between thisand the data collected by ICAO through its OFOD (Form B) mainly related to the level of aggregationpublished. During the last two years LACAC has also launched an ambitious programme to establishits own statistical on-line database similar to the ICAO ISDB. Such a project is still at its early stagesas LACAC States are trying to establish what data should be included in their database.5.6AFCAC has been mandated, but has so far been unsuccessful, to start a statisticalregional data collection of its own. In the meantime AFCAC is encouraging member States toparticipate in full in the ICAO Statistical Programme. The role of establishing a regional civil aviationdatabase appears to have been taken up by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) with whomICAO is collaborating by providing statistics for Africa.11ACI Statistics Manual 2011

5.7The development of the ISDB within ICAO and the widespread availability of theinternet worldwide makes the continued desire of some regional organizations to have their ownstatistical database somewhat superfluous, except if they wish to collect data which are not at presentcollected by ICAO. Otherwise their best option is to use the ICAO statistical programme as their own.This will not only save them the money required to set up the necessary infrastructure and applicationsbut also to pay for the additional resources they would require to enter, verify and maintain a database.5.8During the previous STAP, it has been recommended that ICAO should proceed todevelop regional statistical yearbooks to complement the global one, in close collaboration withregional organizations where relevant. These would contain a core section produced with data fromICAO and could be complemented by inclusion of a section which would meet the specialrequirements of each region and would be largely defined by the regional organization concerned.However, due to resource constraints this project never progressed beyond the development of “mockups” by ICAO and initial discussion. As per today and taking into account the existence of the ISDBsystem, this project could be more easily implemented for the benefit of each ICAO region.5.9At the present time the day-to-day cooperation between ICAO and the otherorganizations is limited to exchanging information with a clear understanding that it will only be usedfor internal purposes and not included in any commercialized report. The commercialization ofstatistical data by all concerned is also a major obstacle when discussing how cooperation between thedifferent organizations could be expanded. Nevertheless, this obstacle could be overcome by seekingcooperation on how to collect data more efficiently rather than in data exchange.5.10Therefore there is a need to discuss an acceptable way for all the parties involved toopen up our cooperation on data collection so that reporting entities can submit one form to all at once,thus benefiting all organizations at the same time.————————12ACI Statistics Manual 2011

3Definitions used in ACI’s surveys on airport activityClear definitions are a pre-requisite to effective statistics collection and interpretation. ForACI, the emphasis on passenger statistics has always been on the impact that thepassenger actually makes on airport operations and infrastructure as he or she departs,transfers, and arrived. Thus a passenger in ACI’s statistics shows up once on departure,twice on transfer (if there is a change in flight number at an intermediate stop – once if thereis no change of flight number) and once on arrival. One can imagine the importance of thesedefinitions in accurately counting passengers at a busy connecting hub where the majority ofpassengers are transfer or transit.For other industry stakeholders, particularly IATA and air carriers, “enplanements” orrevenue passenger kilometers are

ACI publications in the field of statistics ACI World produces a number of statistical documents. They are listed below, with the number of participating airports in parentheses. (The annual Airport Economics Survey is discussed in Chapter 9). In o