Program Description

The U.S. International Air Travel Statistics (or “I-92”) program is a joint effort between the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI) to provide international air traffic statistics data to the government and the travel industry.

The system is a source of all international flights to and from the U.S., including flights with less than 10 passengers. It reports the total volume of air traffic and various subsets of traffic. A differentiating feature of the I-92, compared to the T-100, is that the I-92 reports the number of U.S. citizens vs. “all other citizens.” (The T-100 system is maintained by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS).

OTTI analyzes and reports on both the inbound/outbound traffic flows. However, OTTI uses U.S. citizen outbound air travel, from the United States, to develop estimates of travel imports.

How is the information collected?

The information collected from this program has been based upon the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) since July 2010. All carriers serving the U.S. must transmit APIS data (from their automated flight manifests) to CBP for each flight departing to the U.S. and departing from the U.S. Canada is included in this program. The information collected provides non-stop point-to-point air traffic totals between the U.S. and all other countries and the U.S. and foreign airports. This information is further subset by the number of passengers on U.S. flag or foreign flag carriers. In addition, there is a breakout of scheduled or charter flight passengers. Prior to July 2010 the source document was the DHS/INS I-92 form. Since manual data entry of the source data has been eliminated the reporting of these data has been streamlined. For example, a travel month could be reported by the 15th of the subsequent month.

In the monthly, quarterly and annual I-92 reports, there are four sets of tables. The first three sets have an arrivals portion (Ia, IIa, and IIIa), as well as a departures section (Id, IId, and IIId). The fourth table is a summary of traffic by flag of carrier.

Table Ia and Id provide passenger travel volume data between the United States and other countries by two major distribution breakouts: scheduled and charter flights. Within the two larger column headings are further subsets of U.S. and foreign flag, and they are subset by aliens and citizens. There are also totals for scheduled and charter flights as well as a grand total for arrival or departure traffic. Each column heading as corresponding traffic volume data totals by world region and countries.

Table IIa and IId provide passenger volume data between the United States and other countries for U.S. and Foreign Flag carriers regardless of whether or not the flight was scheduled or charter. The volume totals by flag of carrier is sub-divided further by citizens and alien traffic along with a total traffic figure by flag of the carrier. There is also a total traffic figure as well. Each column heading as corresponding traffic volume data totals by world region and countries.

Table IIIa and IIId provide passenger volume data between the United States ports and other countries/ports. The column headings in these tables are: citizens, aliens, U.S. flag, foreign flag, scheduled charter, and total.

Table IV provides passenger volume data by flag of carrier and foreign countries. The column headings include: citizens, aliens, arrivals, departures, scheduled charter, and total. The reports can be purchased separately, or in combinations for monthly, quarterly and annual reports. The prices range from $150, for a single monthly print-file issue to $5,795 for an annual subscription including monthly, quarterly and yearend reports in both print and in excel. Electronic data files can also be purchased for up to $21,540. Data can be purchased for internal use only. To obtain the I-92 data, please contact OTTI. Please note, OTTI relies upon sales of these data to support and enhance this program. It is not fully funded by a congressional appropriation.