Statistics Botswana has said the nation’s airspace witnessed an increase in both international and local aircraft movements in the second quarter of 2013.
In a data released on Friday, the organisation headed by Statistician General, Anna Majelantle, revealed that aircraft movement saw a 24 percent increase, from 17,726 movements realised in first quarter of 2013 to 21,987 in second quarter.
Domestic traffic went up by 27.8 percent, from 13,533 recorded in first quarter to 17,291, while International aircraft traffic increased by 12 percent, from 4,193 movements to 4,696 movements recorded in second quarter of 2013.
Compared to the same quarter in the previous year, there was an increase of 4.6 percent from 21,029 movements recorded in Q2, 2012 to 21,987 movements recorded in Q2 2013.
On scheduled aircraft movements, a 2.2 percent fall was realized in the second quarter while an increase was realized in non-scheduled and private movements.
Of the three airports, the Maun airport set the pace, accounting for 60.1 percent of all the traffic which was mostly non-scheduled. Compared to the first half, aircraft movement increased by 25.5 percent to 13,204.
The Gaborone airport, which handles mostly international scheduled movements, was the second after Maun with 19.2 percent. Ghanzi airport had the least traffic with just 0.3 percent and did not have international traffic.
The airports registered a 16 percent increase in air passenger movements in the second quarter. The month of June had the highest air passenger traffic, accounting for 35.2 percent of all the movements in Q2 2013.
According to SB, compared to the same quarter of the prior year, total air passenger movements fell by 7 percent, from 193,221 recorded in first quarter of 2012 to 191,863 in second quarter of 2013.
Gaborone airport recorded the highest number of passengers compared to other airports in this quarter, accounting for 52.1 percent of the total. Ghanzi airport was the least used airport, accounting for only 0.1 percent of all the passengers.
Despite the fact that Maun airport had the highest aircraft traffic in second quarter of 2013, it did not record the highest number of air passenger traffic because aircraft traffic in Maun was dominated by non-scheduled domestic flights which carry a limited number of passengers as compared to scheduled international flights.
