In 2021, more than *********** people flew by plane. The passenger traffic is anticipated to gradually increase, and the demand for air passengers is expected to surpass **********.

In 2023, the estimated number of scheduled passengers boarded by the global airline industry amounted to approximately *** billion people. This represents a significant increase compared to the previous year since the pandemic started and the positive trend was forecast to continue in 2024, with the scheduled passenger volume reaching just below **** billion travelers. Airline passenger traffic The number of scheduled passengers handled by the global airline industry has increased in all but one of the last decade. Scheduled passengers refer to the number of passengers who have booked a flight with a commercial airline. Excluded are passengers on charter flights, whereby an entire plane is booked by a private group. In 2023, the Asia Pacific region had the highest share of airline passenger traffic, accounting for ********* of the global total.

This Dataset contains month-wise city pair-wise passenger traffic statistics for the year 2021

The number of flights performed globally by the airline industry has increased steadily since the early 2000s and reached **** million in 2019. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the number of flights dropped to **** million in 2020. The flight volume increased again in the following years and was forecasted to reach ** million in 2025.

The United States had the largest commercial air travel market in 2021, with just over *** million passengers boarding planes registered to American and international air carriers. The next largest market was China, with more than *** million passengers, while the Eurozone ranked in third place, with almost *** million passengers. Passenger measurement Measuring the number of passengers boarded by carriers registered in a country provides an indication of the size of that country’s airline industry, but it does not measure the amount of air travel in that country. For example, as Ryanair is registered in Ireland, all Ryanair flights count as Irish, even if the flight was between, say, Berlin and London. One way to measure the number of air passengers within a country is to look at the number of passengers passing through airports in that country. Alternatively, the level of travel within an airline market can be considered at the regional level, in which case North America slips back to third behind the Asia Pacific region and Europe. Erasing two decades of growth in global air travel Regardless of how passenger numbers are measured, global air travel increased rapidly over the last decade. However, this was not the case in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic erased two decades of global passenger traffic growth, cutting the number of air passengers to only *** billion and the number of flights globally to **** million. Looking at this period, the Middle East region was affected the most, with seat capacity down ** percent compared to 2019.

Air transport, passengers carried in World was reported at 2279974770 in 2021, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. World - Air transport, passengers carried - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on September of 2025.

Passengers enplaned and deplaned at Canadian airports, annual.

This statistic represents passenger-miles in U.S. air traffic from 2007 through 2021. In 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. air passengers covered a distance of only 306.1 billion miles by plane. According to the source, air traffic passenger miles are defined as aircraft-miles flown on each inter airport segment multiplied by the number of passengers carried on that segment.

Air transport, passengers carried in Indonesia was reported at 33549828 in 2021, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Indonesia - Air transport, passengers carried - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on September of 2025.

In 2024, more than *********** passengers traveled by air in China, an increase of **** percent compared to the previous year. This indicated a significant recovery in the aviation industry since the end COVID-19 pandemic control measures. Air travel in China As a significant international hub for both business and leisure travel, China’s airports are sites of bustling activity with cargo and passengers being transported in and out of the nation every day. Air travel is a very time-efficient mode of transportation. More and more people in China's socio-economic strata can afford air travel, which has led to the expansion of the nation’s air fleet. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the number of flight hours surged by a significant degree with China Southern which is owned by China Southern Air Holding Group, reaching nearly ************* flight hours in 2019. The aviation industry shows recovery The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to massive losses for the Chinese aviation industry, with the cancellation of flights to and from China. For the first time in the last decade or so, China experienced a decline in the volume of air passengers and air cargo. The industry recovered in 2021 with a *** percent year-over-year increase in air passenger numbers and an *** percent year-over-year increase in air cargo. Furthermore, the industry was predicted to have enhanced employment opportunities between 2021 and 2040, with a growing demand for cabin crews, technicians, and pilots.

Egypt Air Transport: Number of Passengers: Annual: Others data was reported at 40.409 Person th in 2022. This records an increase from the previous number of 34.579 Person th for 2021. Egypt Air Transport: Number of Passengers: Annual: Others data is updated yearly, averaging 92.000 Person th from Dec 2008 (Median) to 2022, with 15 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 150.000 Person th in 2009 and a record low of 34.579 Person th in 2021. Egypt Air Transport: Number of Passengers: Annual: Others data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Civil Aviation. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Egypt – Table EG.TA020: Air Transport: Number of Passengers: Annual.

China Air: Passenger Traffic: YoY: Year to Date: International data was reported at 34.000 % in Mar 2025. This records a decrease from the previous number of 38.600 % for Feb 2025. China Air: Passenger Traffic: YoY: Year to Date: International data is updated monthly, averaging 14.200 % from Feb 2006 (Median) to Mar 2025, with 229 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,591.100 % in Aug 2023 and a record low of -97.800 % in Jan 2021. China Air: Passenger Traffic: YoY: Year to Date: International data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Civil Aviation Administration of China. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Transportation and Storage Sector – Table CN.TI: Air: Passenger Traffic.

Paraguay Air Traffic: Passenger data was reported at 865,521.000 Person in 2022. This records an increase from the previous number of 433,859.000 Person for 2021. Paraguay Air Traffic: Passenger data is updated yearly, averaging 604,062.000 Person from Dec 1998 (Median) to 2022, with 25 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,209,621.000 Person in 2019 and a record low of 308,175.000 Person in 2020. Paraguay Air Traffic: Passenger data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by National Institute of Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Paraguay – Table PY.TA002: Air Traffic: Passenger.

China Air: Passenger Traffic: YoY: Year to Date: Domestic: Regional data was reported at -1.700 % in Mar 2025. This records an increase from the previous number of -3.000 % for Feb 2025. China Air: Passenger Traffic: YoY: Year to Date: Domestic: Regional data is updated monthly, averaging 5.000 % from Feb 2006 (Median) to Mar 2025, with 229 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,663.200 % in Aug 2023 and a record low of -94.600 % in Jan 2021. China Air: Passenger Traffic: YoY: Year to Date: Domestic: Regional data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Civil Aviation Administration of China. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Transportation and Storage Sector – Table CN.TI: Air: Passenger Traffic.

Passenger Traffic: International: To India: Foreign Operators: Kam Air data was reported at 5,364.000 Person in Sep 2021. This records an increase from the previous number of 3,607.000 Person for Jun 2021. Passenger Traffic: International: To India: Foreign Operators: Kam Air data is updated quarterly, averaging 10,719.000 Person from Mar 2015 (Median) to Sep 2021, with 25 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 18,826.000 Person in Mar 2019 and a record low of 1,264.000 Person in Sep 2020. Passenger Traffic: International: To India: Foreign Operators: Kam Air data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Directorate General of Civil Aviation. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Transportation, Post and Telecom Sector – Table IN.TA036: Aviation Statistics: Passenger Traffic: International: by Airline: To India.

Bulgaria Air Transport: Civil Aviation Activity: Passengers Carried: ow Domestic Airlines data was reported at 211.000 Person th in 2022. This records an increase from the previous number of 14.000 Person th for 2021. Bulgaria Air Transport: Civil Aviation Activity: Passengers Carried: ow Domestic Airlines data is updated yearly, averaging 153.000 Person th from Dec 2004 (Median) to 2022, with 19 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 211.000 Person th in 2022 and a record low of 14.000 Person th in 2021. Bulgaria Air Transport: Civil Aviation Activity: Passengers Carried: ow Domestic Airlines data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by National Statistical Institute. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Bulgaria – Table BG.TA007: Air Transport Statistics.

The Air Traffic Data International Mobility Indicators for the UK results from the investigation on air passenger data from the Sabre Corporation [1], accessed through a collaboration with the JRC Ispra. Starting from air passenger traffic volumes from each country of origin and to the final country of destination, two mobility indicators based on log flow ratios were provided: the Flow Log Ratio (FLR) and the Cumulative Flow Log Ratio (CFLR). These indicators, computed with monthly and yearly resolution, allow to eliminate short term trips observing the general pattern of longer-term mobility. The Flow Log Ratio (FLR) is defined as the logarithm of the ratio between the number of incoming individuals in a given country (e.g., entering the UK) and the number of outgoing individuals in the same observed country (e.g., leaving the UK). The indicators are provided for the UK versus the rest of the European Union. Further, we provide regional indicators using the division of EU member states into regions proposed by the EuroVoc vocabulary [2]: Northern (Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Southern (Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Cyprus, Spain), Western (France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium), Central and Eastern (Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Czechia, Slovenia). Europe-level indicators are also included. The entire Air Traffic Data International Mobility Indicators for the UK includes monthly and yearly Flow Log Ratio and Cumulative Flow Log Ratio indicators calculated at different spatial and time resolutions. Further, the monthly set also provides the components obtained by applying Seasonal-Trend decomposition (TSD) [3] to FLR regional values. These allow for separating seasonal from overall patterns. The Air Traffic Data International Mobility Indicators for the UK include FLRs and CFLRs values calculated for the United Kingdom versus: the 27 countries in the European Union, the four regions of the European Union, and the entire European Union. Monthly data are provided from February 2011 to October 2021, while yearly data covers 2011-2021. Moreover, the monthly dataset includes components, i.e., trend, seasonal, and residual signals, obtained by decomposing the regional EU FLRs with Statsmodels [4] Python library (using an additive model with 12 components). In publishing the dataset, we followed the DEU guidelines for publishing high-quality data. To ensure interoperability and facilitate automatic processing by machines, we used the CSV format with US-ASCII encoding. All country names follow the ISO2 standard. The European subregions follow the EuroVoc vocabulary, dates are standardised, time series are complete. The CSV files are accompanied by a README that defines all variables included in the data and cross-references publications. References: [1] Sabre. Market intelligence, global demand data. https://es.sonicurlprotection-fra.com/click?PV=2&MSGID=202302101437200109948&URLID=11&ESV=10.0.19.7431&IV=259BC11764855306985B70AF21AF9795&TT=1676039840964&ESN=Vs8xERNXlu7bOs3Tyb9f%2Fa8tNspLAa%2FGwagIu4vHdcQ%3D&KV=1536961729280&B64_ENCODED_URL=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2FicmUuY29tL3Byb2R1Y3RzL21hcmtldC1pbnRlbGxpZ2VuY2UvLA&HK=D2BCC95C29FB56BEC2A395CC3D9C17C53D482CA86C9C38AA591FB4CEC3FD597F 2021. Accessed: 2021-11-15. [2] https://es.sonicurlprotection-fra.com/click?PV=2&MSGID=202302101437200109948&URLID=10&ESV=10.0.19.7431&IV=2934525D891132A3AEF7FAE3284ABBF5&TT=1676039840964&ESN=1y%2BYp5gdrdyZM9uJx0B%2FPBEP1rDDsKvDHe7LgSX0cS8%3D&KV=1536961729280&B64_ENCODED_URL=aHR0cHM6Ly9ldXItbGV4LmV1cm9wYS5ldS9icm93c2UvZXVyb3ZvYy5odG1sP3BhcmFtcz03Miw3MjA2&HK=8C84248906662B84FF5949BF9C969AA3FE97AB3970282A47E9BDFA1EB8E0B1F6 [3] Cleveland, R.B., Cleveland, W.S., McRae, J.E. and Terpenning, I., 1990. STL: A seasonal-trend decomposition. J. Off. Stat, 6(1), pp.3-73. [4] McKinney, W., Perktold, J., & Seabold, S. (2011). Time series analysis in python with statsmodels. Jarrodmillman. Com, 96-102. (2023-02-20)

Motivation

The data in this dataset is derived and cleaned from the full OpenSky dataset to illustrate the development of air traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic. It spans all flights seen by the network's more than 2500 members since 1 January 2019. More data has been periodically included in the dataset until the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We stopped updating the dataset after December 2022. Previous files have been fixed after a thorough sanity check.

License

See LICENSE.txt

Disclaimer

The data provided in the files is provided as is. Despite our best efforts at filtering out potential issues, some information could be erroneous.

Origin and destination airports are computed online based on the ADS-B trajectories on approach/takeoff: no crosschecking with external sources of data has been conducted. Fields origin or destination are empty when no airport could be found.

Aircraft information come from the OpenSky aircraft database. Fields typecode and registration are empty when the aircraft is not present in the database.

Description of the dataset

One file per month is provided as a csv file with the following features:

callsign: the identifier of the flight displayed on ATC screens (usually the first three letters are reserved for an airline: AFR for Air France, DLH for Lufthansa, etc.)

number: the commercial number of the flight, when available (the matching with the callsign comes from public open API); this field may not be very reliable;

icao24: the transponder unique identification number;

registration: the aircraft tail number (when available);

typecode: the aircraft model type (when available);

origin: a four letter code for the origin airport of the flight (when available);

destination: a four letter code for the destination airport of the flight (when available);

firstseen: the UTC timestamp of the first message received by the OpenSky Network;

lastseen: the UTC timestamp of the last message received by the OpenSky Network;

day: the UTC day of the last message received by the OpenSky Network;

latitude_1, longitude_1, altitude_1: the first detected position of the aircraft;

latitude_2, longitude_2, altitude_2: the last detected position of the aircraft.

Examples

Possible visualisations and a more detailed description of the data are available at the following page:

Credit

If you use this dataset, please cite:

Martin Strohmeier, Xavier Olive, Jannis Lübbe, Matthias Schäfer, and Vincent Lenders "Crowdsourced air traffic data from the OpenSky Network 2019–2020" Earth System Science Data 13(2), 2021 https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-357-2021

Air transport, passengers carried in Austria was reported at 18901048 in 2021, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Austria - Air transport, passengers carried - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on September of 2025.

Turkey: Airline passengers of domestically owned airlines: The latest value from 2021 is 69.07 million passengers, an increase from 44.72 million passengers in 2020. In comparison, the world average is 15.00 million passengers, based on data from 152 countries. Historically, the average for Turkey from 1970 to 2021 is 24.2 million passengers. The minimum value, 1.04 million passengers, was reached in 1970 while the maximum of 115.6 million passengers was recorded in 2018.