Statistical returns in respect of carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air

PURPOSE : to establish the collection of statistical returns in respect of the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air. COMMUNITY MEASURE : Regulation 437/2003/EC of the European Parliament and of the council on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air. CONTENT : this Regulation comes about due to the need for the Community institutions to have comparable, consistent, synchronised and regular statistical data on the scale and development of the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air within the Community or to and from the Community. There are currently no such comprehensive statistics. The Regulation makes the following provisions: - Member States must establish statistical returns on the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by commercial air services as well as on civil aircraft movements to or from Community airports, except for flights by State aircraft. The application of this Regulation to Gibraltar airport is suspended until the arrangements in the Joint Declaration made by Spain and the United Kingdom of 2 December 1987 come into operation. The application of the Regulation to the airport of Gibraltar is without prejudice to the respective legal positions of Spain and the United Kingdom over Gibraltar. Member States must collect statistical data relating to passengers, freight and mail, flight stages, passenger seats available, and aircraft movements. Each Member State will collect all data set out in Annex I for all Community airports in its territory with traffic in excess of 150 000-passenger units annually. The Commission will draw up a list of Community airports. There are transitional provision for certain smaller airports. There are additional provisions on data processing, transmission of results and dissemination of the statistics. After data have been collected over a period of three years, the Commission must submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council on experience acquired in the application of the Regulation, with particular reference to the transmission of results and dissemination. ENTRY INTO FORCE : 31/03/03.�