Nigeria airports record 73.8m passengers in five years

No fewer than 73,787,698 air travellers were recorded to have passed through Nigerian airports and aerodromes in the last five years, a report has revealed.

Also, within the same period, January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2021, Nigeria recorded 1,148,495 aircraft movement across its local and for­eign routes among indigenous and international airlines, while it record­ed 870,978,743.41kg as import and ex­port cargo traffic in all the nation’s airports.

Also, the country recorded 260,561,935.93kg as import and export mail traffic within the airport.

The breakdown of the re­port indicated that in 2017, domestic passengers were 9,838,899, while the internation­al traffic was 4,007,513, totalling 13,846,412 within the period.

For 2018, the country re­corded a total number of 16,374,086 passengers, indicat­ing 11,941,364 for domestic and 4,432,722 for international pas­sengers.

The 16,374,086 passenger movement for 2018 indicated 18.26 percent when compared to the same period in 2017.

Besides, in 2019, Nigeria recorded a total of 17,580,023 passengers with 12,951,670 and 4,628,353 for domestic and in­ternational traffic, respectively.

The 2019 traffic just like the previous year was a boost when compared to the 2018 passenger movement, showing 7.36 percent increase.

However, for 2020, pas­senger movement declined drastically by 39.33 percent, which could be attributed to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that crippled the global economies.

Recall that in 2020, the Fed­eral Government shut the air­space for three months to curb the spread of the pandemic, while the international gate­ways were shut for about five months.

The total passenger figure for 2020 was 10,666,357, indicat­ing 9,069,295 for domestic travel and 1,597,062 for international travel.

Also, the total passen­ger traffic for 2021 stood at 15,320,822, showing 13,006,481 for domestic travel and 2,321,341 for the international routes.

The 2021 traffic indicated an increase of 43.64 percent when compared to the previous year of 2020.

While the 2021 statistics showed that domestic trav­el had returned to the pre-COVID-19 era as the travel local­ly within the past year was the highest in the last five years, but international traffic was yet to return to the pandemic period.

The Di­rector-General of the Nigeri­an Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Musa Nuhu, had said earlier in the year that domestic travel had recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.