ANALYSIS OF TEMPORAL VARIATIONS OF AIR PASSENGERS AND CARGO TRAFFIC IN NNAMDI AZIKWE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, ABUJA - NIGERIA

Abstract: In the 19905 and 20005 air traffic in Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) Abuja has been on the increase resulting from government's vigorous provision of modern Navigational Facilities thus contributing to safe flight within the Nigeria Airspace. The study relied on secondary data sourced from internet; journals and published data obtained from the records of Federal AirportAuthority of Nigeria, N igeria Civil Aviation Authority as well as the Federal Ministry ofTransporfs statistical data of yearly air-passengers and cargo movement atNAIA Abuja from 1 999 to 2009 for airpassengers movement and 2004 to 2009 for cargo movement. Descriptive statistics were largely employed in addition to Time Series and Ordinary Least Square methods for forecasting future trends. The study revealed that annual trends of air-passengers (1 999 to 2009), cargo movement from 2006 to 2009 in NAIA is on the increase. The minimum is 3939 in 1999 and the maximum is 3,199,438 in the year 2009. The mean is 16,146,145 while the standard deviation (SD) is 1,040,000 the coefficient ofvariation (CV) is 64.4% to show that the passenger movement atNAIA over the said period significantly varies. The percentage change generally shows rapid increase from the base year (1999) from 215% in the year 2000 to 54.75% in the year 2009. However, slight decrease of passenger movement was recorded in the year 2005 (-3.1%); and 2006 (-8.3%) due to plane crash (SOSOLISO) that occurred on 23" October, 2005. The study recommends that there is an urgent need for better improvement of the aviation facilities, and equipment; there is also the need for on-job training as the world of aviation is changing daily, owing to rapid innovations in the world of technology as well as improved budgetary allocation for aviation by the government.