AI Analysis: Itinerant movements, by flight rules and runway 88, at airports with NAV CANADA services and other selected airports, monthly

Executive Summary

Statistics Canada's Table 23100299 tracks monthly itinerant aircraft movements across 127 Canadian airports from January 2022 to December 2025, encompassing 18,288 records across IFR, VFR, and Runway 88 flight categories. IFR movements dominate with 26.9 million total movements, while the data is heavily right-skewed — a median of just 341 versus a mean of 2,938 — confirming that a small number of major hub airports drive the vast majority of Canadian air traffic. Seasonal patterns are evident throughout the period, and overall national-level trends remain relatively stable despite significant volatility at individual airports.

Key Findings

• IFR movements are the dominant flight category with 26.9 million total movements, followed by VFR at 19.4 million and Runway 88 at 6.7 million across the 2022–2025 period.
• The data is strongly right-skewed, with a mean of 2,938 movements but a median of only 341, and a standard deviation of 16,941 — nearly 6 times the mean — reflecting extreme concentration of traffic at a small number of major airports.
• Individual monthly movement counts range from a minimum of 1 to a maximum of 221,751, with 50% of all records falling between just 122 and 945 movements (IQR of 823).
• NAV CANADA towers and flight service stations collectively record the highest average monthly movements at approximately 112,900, far exceeding any individual airport in the dataset.
• Fort Nelson, British Columbia is the most volatile airport in the network, with a coefficient of variation of 1.85, indicating highly irregular and unpredictable monthly traffic patterns.
• No strong statistical outliers were detected at the aggregate 'Total, all airports' level using the IQR method, suggesting national aviation activity followed a relatively consistent trend across the four-year period.
• The line chart of monthly trends reveals clear seasonal patterns typical of Canadian aviation, with expected peaks during summer months across all three flight rule categories.